The Highlights

Smooth, soft and lustrous, Pennine is a 2-fold lace, skein dyed into a stunning, nuanced palette. Full of rich, saturated shades, our exclusive blend of 19-micron Polwarth and English Romney shearling add texture to any project.

The specs

Lace

380 metres / 416 yards

50 grams / 1.76 ounces

60% Organic Polwarth Wool

40% Organic Romney Wool

The Highlights

The specs

Lace

380 metres / 416 yards

50 grams / 1.76 ounces

60% Organic Polwarth Wool

40% Organic Romney Wool

13 Steps

Pennine was part of our first foray into worsted-spun yarns. A slightly more complex process, but a fantastic yarn. here's how we did it.

Growing

Great yarn starts with great wool, which has to come from healthy, happy sheep. By working directly with farmers across the UK, including the British Falkland Islands, we can be assured of the origin and quality of every fleece that passes through our hands.

A tender, or weak fleece is the sign of an unhealthy animal, so by ensuring the welfare of the sheep that grow our wool, we're guaranteed only the best fibre.

Shearing

Shearing is essential for ensuring the welfare of sheep - it removes the heavy, sweaty coat before the hot summer months.

For sheep, it's just like getting a haircut. It causes almost no stress or worry, and the highly skilled shearers work swiftly but carefully.

Grading

After shearing, the wool arrives at Garthenor Farm as tightly rolled fleeces. At grading, we assess four separate characteristics - Breed, Colour, Age and Openness (if a fleece is felted, or cotted).

This initial sorting gives us the basis to pay the farmer and group together similar wool types for storage.

Sorting

The vast majority of British wool will go straight into production after grading. However, given the spectacular variety of wools within a single fleece, there is no substitute for sorting each individual fleece before scouring.

At this stage, we are assessing: Fibre Strength (known as soundness), Fineness (the diameter of the fibres), Staple Length, Crimp, Vegetable Matter, Lustre, Yield, and Shade.

Scouring

Hot, steamy, pungent air hits you in the face with the smell of wool as you reach the scourers. Here, lanolin, sweat (known as suint), muck and most of the vegetable matter (hay and straw from the fleece) are washed from the fleece in a series of warm water baths.

After washing and drying, the wool is tightly packed in bales, weighing up to 350kg (770lbs)!

Blending & Carding

The tangled mass of clean fibres following scouring start to get sorted, initially during blending, and then during carding.

Huge drums coated (or clothed) with metal wire teeth tease and open the wool, passing through the carder until a thick roving comes out at the other end. This is starting to look like a yarn, but at this point is much thicker, and has no twist.

Combing & Gilling

Unique to the worsted spinning process, these two processes together make tops. Gilling straightens out and aligns the fibre, helping to produce a smooth, even top. Combing gently removes the short fibres, known as noils.

After gilling, combing and the re-gilling, we are left with buttery smooth, silky tops, ready for spinning.

Spinning

We're finally making a yarn! Before being loaded onto the spinning frame, the tops go through several more gilling operations to further align and smooth the fibres. After gilling, the top is then drawn into a roving, ready for spinning. This is significantly finer than the tops, but has almost no twist.

Spinning begins with drafting - just like in hand spinning, the fibres are gently pulled in the drafting zone. Twist is that added at the travellers - we now have a single ply yarn, wound onto bobbins.

Dyeing

All of the dyes used to add colour to our yarns are fully certified organic - meaning no harsh chemicals, heavy metals or other nasties that can harm people, animals or the environment.

We choose to hank dye - this gives the fibres more room to relax, rather than introducing the pigments whilst under tension, resulting in a softer, more open yarn.

Twisting

Back from the dyehouse on big cones, we need to ply the single ends of yarn together.

To achieve its final form, we use an Italian-made ring twister. This process is slightly slower than more modern methods, but allows us to have precise control of the twist and tension by adjusting belts and speeds.

Skeining

Once twisted, our yarn is ready to be skeined, or reeled. We use a modern, digital machine that can wind 24 skeins at a time - a bit quicker than the single-skein winder we started with!

This mesmerising machine crosses the yarn back and forth to keep an even tension and consistent length for each skein.

2nd Scour

Through dyeing and twisting, the yarn will often be slightly tense, and won't have bulked up fully.

Once we've skeined the yarn, it's in for its second wash. Our soft, Welsh spring water bubbles up at the top of the farm, and is the secret to bulking and relaxing our yarns, allowing them to breathe. The transformation at this step is stunning - from an oily, firm yarn into the gorgeous skeins we sell.

Noddle & Label

At the end of this drawn out process, the final steps are to twist the skeins ready for sale - known as noddling, and slip on our label.

The yarn loop on the label of each skein is so that once you're knitting, you can tie a little end of yarn through the loop to keep in your knitting book.

Reflecting our landscape

Pennine is a stunning expression of the harsh landscape of the Falkland Islands and the lush fields of Wiltshire combining to produce a balanced, cohesive yarn.

For us, there's simply no better reflection of the lanscape that surrounds us than pure organic wool.

Worldwide Shipping

If the order gets to us before midday, we dispatch the very same day

Quick delivery, and free over £99 worldwide, or just £49 in the UK

Gentle Care

To keep your knits in top condition, we recommend a warm hand wash (about 30°C / 85°F)

Use a small amount of your favourite gentle wool wash

Lay flat to dry on a clean towel

Climate Positive

For every skein of yarn we produce, we offset about twice the carbon footprint through sustainable, ethical initiatives, as well as responsible farming practices here at Garthenor.

We also offset our own footprint - things like travelling to shows, electricity usage and heating.

When paired with uncompromising animal welfare, traceability and organic certification throughout, we're confident of doing our bit to help the planet.

Organic, Honest & Fair

Certified organic to GOTS
Unmatched environmental benchmarks
Industry leading animal welfare standards
No harsh chemicals at any point of production
Fair working conditions

Organic, Honest & Fair

Certified organic to GOTS
Unmatched environmental benchmarks
Industry leading animal welfare standards
No harsh chemicals at any point of production
Fair working conditions

Pennine

The Highlights

The specs

The Highlights

The specs

13 Steps

Growing

Shearing

Grading

Sorting

Scouring

Blending & Carding

Combing & Gilling

Spinning

Dyeing

Twisting

Skeining

2nd Scour

Noddle & Label

Reflecting our landscape

Worldwide Shipping

Gentle Care

Climate Positive

Organic, Honest & Fair

Organic, Honest & Fair

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