Blacker Swan yarns
Blacker Swan is a joint venture between Blacker Yarns and Andrez and Ali Short who farm at Swan Inlet Farm on the Falkland Islands. Andrez and Ali shear their specialist merino sheep, sort and grade the fleeces and send them by ship to the UK, where The Natural Fibre Company turns the fine white fleeces into luxurious worsted spun yarns. They are supplied in 50g balls, and fully described on the Details tab on each individual product page.
Andrez and Ali have one of the smallest farms, close to the main town of Stanley and, apart from their sheep also breed pigs and grow vegetables. They herd the sheep on horseback across the tree-less Falkland landscape. The Shorts breed Dunie Merino rams in order to improve fleece quality of Falkland Island sheep, which are largely Merino and Corriedale crosses. They are generally unhappy if they produce fleeces over 20 microns! So this is lovely wool to work with.
We have made a pure white, ivory, fawn and grey yarn by blending the merino with some wool from Sue Blacker's black Blue-faced Leicester sheep and some Shetland moorit from Somerset. We have then created 13 lovely dyed colours, named as far as possible after the wild flowers which grow on the Falkland Islands, some of which are very rare.
To add a little extra, we have also created a range of knitting patterns inspired by the sample yarns we created earlier and sent to British designers. We were so thrilled by their ideas and swatches that we have probably overspent, but this is only the beginning!
TENSION/GAUGE: to be sure of tension, you should always knit a sample tension swatch. Generally the knitter is one variable but the pattern is another, depending on the intentions of the designer! As a guideline: for our 4-ply, on 3mm/US 3, UK 11 needles, you will get 28 sts and 34 rows to a 10cm/4" square. The WPI is usually 14 in woollen and 18 in worsted spun yarns. For our DK, on 4mm/US 6, UK 8 needles, you will get around 20 sts and 28 rows to a 10cm/4" square. The WPI is usually 11 in woollen and 15 in worsted spun yarns.
