Northwest Yarns

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

     

     

    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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