Northwest Yarns

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  Know Your Fiber: Lotus Fiber

  Posted on October 01 2022

     Folks have made use of a wide variety of plant fibers for spinning throughout history. While flax, cotton, and hemp are among the best known of plants fibers, there...

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  Know Your Fiber: Nylon

  Posted on October 01 2021

     We are pretty big on natural fibers here at Northwest Yarns. Wool? All the wool and all the breeds, please. Alpaca, yak, angora, mohair? Why, yes, don’t mind if we...

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• Fiber is not just fiber – the specific qualities of various fibers make some more suitable for some projects than for others.  Of particular interest to crafters who work with wool and other fibers is how fine or how coarse their fiber is.  So, what exactly makes a fine fiber fine, a coarse fiber coarse, and how do we determine fineness or coarseness?

  Know Your Fiber: Fineness and Fiber

  Posted on November 11 2020

     Fiber is not just fiber – the specific qualities of various fibers make some more suitable for some projects than for others.  Of particular interest to crafters who work...

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  Know Your Fiber: Perendale Wool

  Posted on May 01 2020

     It is time for another New Zealand sheep breed – the Perendale! This sheep is a relatively recent addition to the flocks of the world, only appearing on breed...

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  Know Your Fiber: Gotland Wool

  Posted on November 30 2018

    Gotland sheep from the Swedish island of Gotland are not only gosh-darn adorable, but they also produce a beautiful wool with long, lustrous locks.  Settle in, Know Your Fiber...

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  Know Your Fiber: Bluefaced Leicester

  Posted on March 02 2018

     Named for their beautiful gray-blue skin underneath their lustrous wool, the story of Bluefaced Leicester sheep is also the story of how England contributed to a revolution in livestock breeding....

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  Know Your Fiber: Churro Wool

  Posted on February 01 2018

  Navajo-Churro sheep, are direct descendants of the Churra sheep brought in two waves to North America by the Spanish, a very old breed of sheep from the Castile and León...

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  Know Your Fiber: A (Very) Brief History of Wool

  Posted on January 02 2018

  Welcome to a (very) brief history of wool sheep! Wool is an amazing fiber, with qualities that make is unique among all other natural fibers – we’ll be discussing that...

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  Know Your Fiber: Llama

  Posted on December 01 2017

  Long necked, big-eyed, fluffy animals from South America, llamas have fascinated many of us from North America. The availability of llama fiber has steadily been increasing in the yarn world,...

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  Know Your Fiber: Mohair

  Posted on November 01 2017

  Let’s take a look at mohair! Mohair comes from Angora goats, and to look at their history, we have to go back to when humans first learned to keep goats...

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  Know Your Fiber: Angora

  Posted on October 01 2017

  Angora bunnies! Just the words evoke visions of fluffy, cuddly rabbits. Or for fiber artists, visions of soft and amazingly cozy sweaters, hats, scarves, and gloves.How humans discovered and bred...

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  Know Your Fiber: Silk

  Posted on September 02 2017

  The use of silk as a fiber is thought by most historians to have been developed in early China. Chinese legend has it that silk was discovered by Leizu, an empress...

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  Know Your Fiber: Yak

  Posted on August 01 2017

  Yak is a relatively recent addition to the fibers easily available to the knitters, crocheters, spinners and weavers on this side of the world. The undercoat of the yak, known...

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  Know Your Fiber: Cotton

  Posted on July 06 2017

  Cotton has been used for millennia. The earliest evidence of human use of cotton has been found on the Indian subcontinent, where cotton threads were found in copper beads dating...

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  Know Your Fiber: Alpaca

  Posted on June 01 2017

  If you have spent any time at all in a yarn shop, you have probably seen alpaca and alpaca-blend yarns, and marveled at their softness.  Alpacas are in the camelid...

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