Down The Allotment, Tops – MOW Special (new and original blend)
To celebrate our Mill Open Weekend this year, we have created our Down The Allotment Tops specials and we just can’t get enough of ’em!
As many of our Mill Folks tend a veggie patch when they aren’t here at the Mill, we took our inspiration from our allotments, naming these shades after tools and crops. We decided to create a range of heathered, multi tonal tops with a gentle palette of 9 shades from brights to sophisticated neutrals – all inspired by the pleasures of getting ones fingers grubby and connecting with nature by growing things. With a Jacob – Merino base, this blend is the perfect combo of softness and spring – creating a joyful fibre suited to create anything your heart desires.
The yarn is made by plying four singles together to create delicate and subtle marls. Some shades, like Borlotti Bean, contain as many as four different colours within them! This gives the colours a more nuanced depth. Once worked up, we reckon they are just the ticket for capturing the feel of the dappled light and relaxed energy of the veg garden. The eagle eyed amongst you will note that the shades of our Down the Allotment tops are different to the finished yarn. This is because they reflect the shades of the yarn before all that marling. We would encourage folks to snaffle a few shades, spin them up and see what marled experiments they can create with their handspun! We love the creative possibilities of playing with colour in this way and found it tremendous fun at the mill, so hopefully you folks at home will relish the freedom to experiment too.
Composition: 65% Falklands Merino / 35% West Country Jacob OR the New Blend 33% Falklands Merino / 33% Bluefaced Leicester / 33% Jacob
More Info
This year we decided to blend our organically farmed Falklands Merino with West Country Jacob. Who doesn’t love the softness and smoothness of Merino? But paired with springy and hard-wearing Jacob, it enhances the texture and and loft of the yarn, resulting in a blend that is still soft enough to wear next to the skin, but keeping a little crispness, bounce and halo – sublime.
(like many-horned, woolly dalmatians) so adding the pale brown Jacob fibre lends the finished colours a gentle muted feel. Merino can be a little prone to pilling, which is one of the reasons we decided to make this yarn a 4-fold DK, to keep those pesky floofy bits in check a little!
Hand wash at low temperature with mild detergent.
