Very new indeed

This week, we took delivery of a brand new range of yarn, and we're rather excited about it. Hand-dyed by Coolree Yarns in a few miles outside of Wexford town in an 18th century farmhouse, this is a really beautiful product. Alex is the talent behind this stunning new line, and says: "I do produce some quite lively, contrasting colourways but personally I prefer the more subtle tonal variations that you get from combining analogous colours. They may not be quite so striking in the skein, but they knit up more beautifully. The colours enhance each other, rather than competing." We've got three different blends of luxurious fibre. Two of them are fingering weight, one merino and silk (the gleam on this must be seen to be believed) and one alpaca, silk and cashmere. These both come in 400m skeins, which would give you a very generous pair of gloves, luxurious socks or a shawl like Swallowtail or a single-colour Cladonia. There's one sportweight, which is an alpaca and silk blend, and there's 262m in a skein. It would work for accessories too, but we're thinking about the softest cardigans and jumpers imaginable. Carol Feller's Ravi would work splendidly. A real point of interest about these Coolree yarns is how the different bases take dye differently. The image above shows the three bases, merino/silk, alpaca/silk and alpaca/silk/cashmere, all in the same colourway, Hokusai's Wave. The subtle variation of shade and saturation is lovely to look at. We're expecting great things from this line, as Alex says: "I use the old barn here for dyeing and drip-drying my skeins...I am enthusiastic about the whole process of yarn production from keeping the animals themselves, to shearing, carding, spinning, dyeing and knitting. And, with an unused paddock at the back of the house, who’s to say that I won’t eventually have my own little herd of breeding alpacas out there?" We're very proud to offer such a delightful Irish product, and we can't wait to show it to you in person.