British Breeds has taken two years to develop into the beautiful, soft, bouncy 4 ply yarn that it is today. Worsted spun in Devon by John Arbon and his wonderful team, British Breeds is now available in 26 colours - it took a long time to finalise the colour palette as I had to be sure that all of the colours work well together in Fairisle knitting but also that each shade is a beautiful individual colour for single colour knitting.

British Breeds is made from four different British sheep breeds:   The wool fibre from each breed adds a certain characteristic to the yarn; Bluefaced Leicester adds the beautiful softness, Exmoor Horn adds the softness too but this sheep produces a white fleece therefore adding a ‘cleaness’ to the blended tops making for more successful dyeing. Wensleydale adds the strength and lustre and Zwartbles adds the bounce or springiness. To produce the yarn, the Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn and Wensleydale wool fibres are first blended together and then dyed into various coloured tops. These coloured tops are then blended together using a ‘recipe’ to create each of the 16 base colours. Each colour base is then blended with the undyed Zwartbles fibre creating the lovely mélange effect. Once the yarn is spun it is sent to Edward Hill’s Ltd in Bradford to be steam relaxed and balled into 25g balls. The steam finishing ‘opens up’ the yarn creating the full, light appearance and handle.

In Lot 016 Raw, Romney replaces Wensleydale and all shades from Lot 017 will change over to the new blend of Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn, Romney and Zwartbles.

British Breeds has an approximate length of 85m (93 yds) and a tension of 28 sts & 29 rows to 10cm measured over Fair Isle knitting using 3.25mm needles. On stocking stitch the tension is 26 sts & 34 rows to 10cm using 3mm needles.  To care for your British Breeds garment or accessory, please hand wash in cold water only, using a mild liquid detergent, suitable for delicate woollens and reshape whilst damp.

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The new British Breeds Gift Box Edition 3 is the perfect opportunity to knit all 20 glorious colours in the British Breeds yarn range. The gift box contains 21 balls of the British Breeds yarn (1 x 25gm ball of 19 colours and 2  x 25gm balls of one other colour), a book containing the new and exclusive Ottilie Shrug pattern and the accessory patterns from Gift Boxes 1 and 2, and a Marie Wallin calico project bag. All this is presented in a high quality, re-useable large gift box which has a magnetic closure. Included in the price of the gift box is a downloadable PDF version of the new gift box book. With this you will be able to enlarge the charts without having to spoil the printed book. The download link is sent by email once your order has been shipped.

The Ottilie Shrug is a new Fairisle design and is exclusive to this gift box and will not be available anywhere else. The shrug is knitted flat using 20 colours and the additional exclusive accessory designs from Gift Box 1 and 2 are the perfect projects for using up any of your leftover yarns.

Ottilie Shrug Finished Measurements, Sizing & Fit

Finished measurements - flat

Chest – 64 cm (25¼ in) measured 3 cm down from armhole

Welt width – 58 cm (22¾ in)

Length – 46 cm (18 in) measured from side of neck down

Fit

S – 81 to 86 cm (32 to 34 in) – very loose fit

M – 91 to 97 cm (36 to38 in) – loose fit

L – 102 to 107 cm (40 to 42 in) – semi fitted

XL – 112 to 117 cm (44 to 46 in) – fitted

XXL – 122 to 127 cm (48 to 50 in) – snug fit

Norwegian Spirit

Bergen

www.norwegian-spirit.com

Tel: 941 66 311

UniQ Garn AS

Trondheim

https://uniqgarn.no

Tel: 973 37 531