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July 2023 Newsletter
We are a bit later than we intended with this newsletter, but it's for a good reason: we were waiting for some new products to arrive so that we can tell you all about them here! We've also got our thoughts about Plastic Free July, increased colour ranges and some changes we are making to the website.
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Contents
- New! Lankava Mercerised Cotton 8/4
- Plastic Free July
- Valley Yarns Extra Colours
- Yarn Count Converter
- AGWSD Summer School
- Changes to the Website
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New! Lankava Mercerised Cotton 8/4
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Lots of you have asked, and we're now stocking it: Lankava's "Esito" Mercerised Cotton in an 8/4NeC (74x4Tex) count.
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Originally marketed for crochet work, this yarn has proven popular with weavers as both warp and weft. The count lends itself to runner and place mats, and as a strong warp for krokbragd with a wool weft.
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Because it is a mercerised cotton the yarn has a medium sheen but retains its softness. We have the full range of 29 colours including natural, put up is 200g wound into a cone.
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Plastic Free July
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It's almost the end of Plastic Free July, and we're committed to reducing our plastic footprint. One way that you can join us in this is by choosing yarns that are biodegradable and don't contribute to microplastic pollution.
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Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that can come from a variety of sources, including synthetic yarns like polyester, nylon and acrylic. When these yarns are washed they shed tiny fibres that end up in our waterways and oceans. These microplastics can then be ingested by marine life, which can have harmful health consequences.
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Natural fibres also shed particles, but they biodegrade. Let's take a look at our natural weaving yarns:
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Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fibre that grows in a boll (a protective case) around the seeds of the cotton plant. It is biodegradable and compostable. It's also soft, breathable, and absorbent, making it a great choice for a variety of projects and it is our most popular yarn fibre.
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Linen is another natural fibre from the stems of the flax plant and is also biodegradable and compostable. It's also strong and durable, and can hold up 20% of its weight of water.
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Silk is wound from the cocoons of the silk worm. Its surface is coated with a protein called sericin. Sericin repels dust mites, which are a major source of allergic irritation. Sericin also makes silk resistant to mould, fungus, and bacteria. Silk is completely biodegradable although some dyes do hinder the process.
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Wool is of course sheep hair, a protein called keratin which is broken down by micro-organisms in soil or water. You can add your snips of wool (and any natural wool that you find in hedges and on fences) to your compost heap as "dry" material.
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Wool fibres trap air making a soft and warm fabric which is also flame-resistant and odour-resistant. By way of comparison acrylic, which is often substituted for wool, is a petroleum derived fibre, is flammable, and like other synthetic yarns would take around 200 years to decompose in the environment.
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Tencel™ sounds like a synthetic fibre but is in fact derived from eucalyptus wood pulp, which is treated with a recoverable solvent and spun into a fibre. Like our bamboo and other rayons it is fully biodegradable.
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If, like us, you want to reduce the impact of plastics on the environment you can take some simple steps to help make every month plastic free:
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- Weave with 100% natural fibres.
- Buy quality, lasting clothing made from natural fibre rather than synthetics.
- Reject fast-fashion.
- Launder at lower temperatures, less often, using a liquid detergent, and running full loads.
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Valley Yarns Extra Colours
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We had such a good response to our launch of Valley Yarns Mercerised Cotton earlier this year that we have decided to expand our range from 25 to the full collection of 57 colours including natural. The colours have the same codes and names across both counts:
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We also now have the full range of Valley Yarns Tencel™ colours including the Tonal and Variegated colour combinations.
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Yarn Count Converter
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Have you ever looked at the counts on your yarns and wondered how you can compare the thickness of cotton with linen, or worsted count and tex?
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Start by entering the count that you know for your yarn - for example an 8/2 cotton count (NeC). The tool immediately shows you the equivalent Metric, Linen, Tex, Woolen spun, Worsted and Denier counts.
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You can also use the same information to estimate the metric or imperial length of the yarn: enter the number of grams or pounds & ounces that you have and it will tell you the approximate number of metres or yards. Make sure that you have specified the correct number of ends (2 in this example) or the length calculation will be wrong!
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AGWSD Summer School
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We will be attending the Trade Fair at the AGWSD Summer School, which this year is to be held at Harper Adams University on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th of August.
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We will be taking a good range of our yarns to the fair which delegates will be able to buy on the day, and we will be alongside Weaving Looms who will have a selection of stretchers, shuttles and reeds for sale.
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If you are going to be there, you can pre-order yarn from our website and choose "collect from the Summer School" as a free delivery option; we will pick, pack and bring along your order for collection on the specified day.
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Note that we won't be posting out orders while we are at the Summer School Trade Fair, any online orders will be despatched on Monday 21st August.
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Changes to the Website
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We are starting to roll out some changes to the website. These include a quick order form for each yarn category which we will be adding over the next few days - you can use this as a "shopping list" for multiple colours of the same yarn.
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We are also going to introduce some more categorisation of yarns - what you can use them for, equivalent counts, and search by manufacturer. Please give us feedback on these features and suggestions for what you would like to see, it helps us develop a more useful website.
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Thank you for reading
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If you would like to get in touch you can send us email, phone, message us through social media or complete the contact form on our website. See you again soon!
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