The Making of our American Cheviot Yarn
Posted on September 06 2019
Our new Stone Wool Cheviot yarn was inspired by traditional English handknitting yarns, yarns both sturdy and friendly. We are proud to have worked with Harrisville Designs to process and spin Cheviot, and we had the pleasure of touring their beautiful historic mill in Harrisville, New Hampshire.
To begin, the Cheviot wool fleeces were scoured and dyed. The various colors of dyed fleece are then blended together in the picker to begin creating our painterly pallet of 15 colors. From there the wool fibers are carded, drafted and plied into yarn.
Compared to our other worsted-spun yarns which are combed before spinning – a process that aligns the fibers precisely and squeezes out air to create a smooth, uniform yarn – these woolen-spun yarn fibers are simply carded before spinning, like using a hairbrush instead of a fine-tooth comb. The carding process leaves fibers plenty of pockets for air to hang out, which means that you’ll find the woolen spun yarn more buoyant and airy.
Carrying on a textile tradition, Harrisville Designs has been spinning woolen yarn for over 40 years in their water powered brick mill in Harrisville, New Hampshire, now a National Historic Landmark. “The village of Harrisville was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. It is recognized as the only 18th century textile village in America that survives in its original form. Harrisville Designs continues to make high quality, natural 100% wool yarns for knitting and weaving along with beautiful carded fleece for felting and spinning.” -Harrisville Designs Story
Cheviot fiber has a unique crimp that gives it resilience and loft. This means that garments knitted in Cheviot have bounce and body and are hard wearing, too. It’s a great choice for sweaters, socks and other accessories that you want to last a lifetime. Or maybe longer. Shop our new Cheviot yarn here.
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