Now that it’s winter and and the season of delightfully woolly yarns, I have a real treat for you! A while ago, I asked my friend Amy at Ross Farm Fiber if we could collaborate to create something a little different and very, very special…
Ross Farm, a sixth-generation farm in rural western Pennsylvania, specialises in heritage breeds of livestock, and spinning amazing yarns from their sheep. And Amy had just sheered the fleeces of a herd of Corriedale sheep that she had rescued and had them spun into beautiful skeins of worsted yarn.
Now, these yarns are not for everyone, I know. They’re very different from what we usually dye at SpaceCadet: thick and very rustic, non-Superwash, delightfully springy when you squeeze them, and with lots of good farm-y crunch to the fibers.
But if you love heritage breeds, love the realness of locally-raised, locally-processed, rare-breed wool… these skeins are something very special.
And even as we started dyeing them, they showed just how special they are: the natural state of the Corriedale wool, the lanolin content, and the gentle variations in the plies meant the yarns took the dye so differently that every single skein is its own unique piece of art. I honestly can’t stop looking at them!
We’ve dyed them in seven beautiful, muted hues that are perfect for the wintery days to come — a dozen skeins in each colour. And we loved the results so much, we added in a couple of our standard yarns as well: SpaceCadet Elara, a lovely soft bulky-weight yarn, and Oriana, a vibrant fingering yarn.
When Jade and I were taking the photos, I’ll be honest… it was really hard not to just bag them back up again and keep them all for ourselves! But tempting as that was, we’re putting them all in the shop to share with you. And believe me, they’re worth snapping up!