Subscriber Exclusive
Beyond Soft: Long, Strong, Lustrous Wool
On the quest for the softest yarn you can find? You’re missing out.
Every knitter has picked up a skein of yarn and exclaimed over its softness. After you’ve brought home a few skeins of super-soft wool, though, you will likely find that it’s better for some uses than others. Fine fibers are generally shorter, and they don’t resist abrasion as well as other wool yarns.
Longer wools offer benefits that make them perfect for sweaters, shawls, and other uses. And don’t assume that any wool but ultrafine Merino is too rough to knit or even to wear next to the skin, either. Longwools can vary in fineness, and a smooth longwool yarn can be comfortable and durable.
Loving Longwools
When designer Norah Gaughan first visited Wing and a Prayer Farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, she fell in love with the sheep and the yarn produced from their wool. She selected a sweater’s worth of Taconic Twist yarn, naturally dyed with onion skin, marigold, and indigo in Farmer Tam’s dyepot to a sage green hue. The yarn blends longwools such as Wensleydale and Cotswold (plus mohair, which has many longwool properties—even if it does come from a goat!) with some Merino for softness. Wing and a Prayer sends the fiber from a few sheep to Battenkill Fibers, a nearby mill that processes yarns in small batches.
The Wee Cardi is worked in a blend of longwools Wensleydale and Cotswold, finewool Merino, and a touch of mohair. Photo by Gale Zucker
Inspired by the farm and yarn, Norah designed the Wee Cardi, a cropped cardigan with textures and cables. What made Norah choose this longwool blend instead of some of the farm’s softer (and also delightful) yarns? Here are some reasons to love longwool yarns and blends:
Luster
If you’ve ever seen wool from a Wensleydale, Romney, Cotswold, or Leicester sheep, you know how shiny the fiber is. The lustrous surface of longwools is even more apparent when the yarns are dyed, when the light reflecting off the fibers can glow like jewels.
It’s not just the surface of the fibers that makes the yarn lustrous. Because the wool has a longer staple (meaning that the individual fibers are longer), it can be spun with more relaxed twist, which brings out the shine even more and can make it feel silky. Taconic Twist has a surface that gleams.
Every knitter has picked up a skein of yarn and exclaimed over its softness. After you’ve brought home a few skeins of super-soft wool, though, you will likely find that it’s better for some uses than others. Fine fibers are generally shorter, and they don’t resist abrasion as well as other wool yarns.
Longer wools offer benefits that make them perfect for sweaters, shawls, and other uses. And don’t assume that any wool but ultrafine Merino is too rough to knit or even to wear next to the skin, either. Longwools can vary in fineness, and a smooth longwool yarn can be comfortable and durable.
Loving Longwools
When designer Norah Gaughan first visited Wing and a Prayer Farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, she fell in love with the sheep and the yarn produced from their wool. She selected a sweater’s worth of Taconic Twist yarn, naturally dyed with onion skin, marigold, and indigo in Farmer Tam’s dyepot to a sage green hue. The yarn blends longwools such as Wensleydale and Cotswold (plus mohair, which has many longwool properties—even if it does come from a goat!) with some Merino for softness. Wing and a Prayer sends the fiber from a few sheep to Battenkill Fibers, a nearby mill that processes yarns in small batches.
The Wee Cardi is worked in a blend of longwools Wensleydale and Cotswold, finewool Merino, and a touch of mohair. Photo by Gale Zucker
Inspired by the farm and yarn, Norah designed the Wee Cardi, a cropped cardigan with textures and cables. What made Norah choose this longwool blend instead of some of the farm’s softer (and also delightful) yarns? Here are some reasons to love longwool yarns and blends:
Luster
If you’ve ever seen wool from a Wensleydale, Romney, Cotswold, or Leicester sheep, you know how shiny the fiber is. The lustrous surface of longwools is even more apparent when the yarns are dyed, when the light reflecting off the fibers can glow like jewels.
It’s not just the surface of the fibers that makes the yarn lustrous. Because the wool has a longer staple (meaning that the individual fibers are longer), it can be spun with more relaxed twist, which brings out the shine even more and can make it feel silky. Taconic Twist has a surface that gleams.
[PAYWALL]
One of Kate Larson’s Border Leicesters shows off her long, lustrous locks. Photo by Kate Larson
Drape
Sewists know that they need to look for drapey fabric when they want a flowy garment, and the same goes for knits. If you want a sweater or shawl that skims over your body and moves with you (but not too closely), you need fiber and yarn with drape. Do you want an elegant wool sweater that moves like silk? Do you need to counteract the clinginess of a cable pattern? Look to longwool. And unlike other drapey fibers such as alpaca and silk, longwools have bold crimp, which provides memory—which keeps them from getting saggy-baggy.
Strength
If you’ve poured your heart into a sweater or pair of socks, you won’t want to find them wearing thin at the elbows or heels too quickly. What longwools trade in fineness they make up for in durability. In fact, longwools are often called “strong wools.”
Yarns that blend longwool and finewool are some of the most popular at Wing and a Prayer Farm (especially in the natural colors from Tamara White’s dyepot). Photo by Ash Patino/Generic Brand Human
The Beauty in a Blend
Mary Jeanne Packer of Battenkill Fibers, which mills Taconic Twist yarn, loves creating yarns that combine fibers. As the said when she was a guest on the Long Thread Podcast, a mill can bring together long, strong wool with fine, soft wool in yarns that are the best of both worlds. In this case, some soft Merino wool adds just a bit of bounce and softness without giving up the wonderful longwool traits. The result is lovely sweater yarn that’s a joy to knit and wear.
So don’t overlook the unique delights of lovely longwools! By all means, cozy up in some soft finewool—it’s lovely for cowls and snuggly sweaters—but there’s a wool for every purpose.
Get the pattern for the Wee Cardi in the Farm & Fiber Knits Library.
