Yarn Update! We are getting closer ...

After a fraught couple of months due to Covid and other issues we are delighted (and very relieved) that all the fleece has now been scoured and is back in the mill being carded and combed as we speak!  This means that we are now very close to starting to spin (maybe even next week if we are lucky!)

I thought I'd share with you a bit about the stages we are currently going through - and you will be able to see why it has been a little bit tricky estimating how much yarn we were going to have available.  But more on that later! 

Producing finished yarn from a raw material is quite an imprecise art.   You start with a whole lot of fleece and at every stage it is whittled down through natural wastage.  

Firstly not all the fleece we deliver might be suitable for spinning so those are removed from the process.  Then during scouring (cleaning) a certain percentage is lost again - this can be up to 50% of the original weight!  Then at carding there will be more material that is too short and will be removed.  At this stage the yarn is combed and any that is to be used as Tops (Fibre) can be set to one side.  This leaves us with a final total that is ready and suitable for spinning.  We are trying to add as many end use options into our yarn - so it can be used by as many knitters, weavers, spinners, dyers and fibre artists as possible.  So we will be spinning to 2/10 nm (approx 4 ply) and then doubling it up to get 4/10 nm (DK weight) and then this will split again into skeins for hand knitters and cones for machine knitters!  So you can see it is a tricky business - especially when you are doing it all for the first time!  We are hoping that over time we will begin to get a much better picture and be able to estimate more accurately.

The diagram below shows exactly how our wool is being divided at each of the stages

Which leads me neatly onto a request for our Fibre Fiesta backers!  We are extremely tight on each of the individual qtys for our Lonk yarn (WFW is fine!) and the amount we keep in Tops can only be in bumps of every 10 kgs.  We have pledged 22 kgs of Lonk but if we keep aside 30 kgs in Tops to cover this we won't have any yarn left at all!  I find this highly ironic that I started working with Ed on Project Lonk so that I had local yarn to knit with and now there might not be any left for my knitting!!!  The best solution for us would be to only order 20 kgs of Lonk Tops and then we would have a small amount left after we had honoured all pledge.  So we wanted to ask if any of our supporters who had requested Lonk fibre would be happy to switch to Whitefaced Woodland instead?  We would be able to offer you 1.5 kgs of WFW to replace the 1 kgs of Lonk at no additional cost and we would also make sure that you had first option on next year's clip of Lonk.

So I will be sending the fulfillment survey to all Fibre backers today to see if there are a couple of you who don't mind switching.  If you are desperate for the original Lonk then that is absolutely fine - please don't feel obliged.  But if you have no preference between the breeds (and would like a bit more fibre for your money!) then you can let us know and it will help us out no end!!

All printed rewards are now being sent out - if you still haven't provided your address details please fill in the survey we sent you so we can send your reward!

And as soon as we have the confirmation that the yarn is spinning we will send out the final surveys to everybody else!

Thanks as ever,

Nic & Team Lonk!