The new Aran version of the 4 ply British Breeds yarns was inspired after designing Grasmoor from Cumbria and Helvellyn from Westmorland, back in 2021. When Marie decided to include menswear in these two collections, she wanted to design a couple of solid colour cable designs in a heavier weight fabric, hence she knitted the design swatches using two ends of British Breeds together. The result was a lovely thick fabric with great stitch definition. However, knitting a design using two ends of yarn together always creates a heavier garment and so Marie decided to develop an Aran version of British Breeds with Helena and Sonia at the John Arbon mill. The result is the beautiful British Breeds Aran yarn in 12 colours taken from the British Breeds palette. British Breeds Aran has the same composition and is exactly twice as thick as the original British Breeds yarn. Like British Breeds, it is made from the wool of 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 ‘cleanness’ to the blended tops, making for more successful dyeing. Romney adds the strength and slight lustre and Zwartbles adds the bounce or springiness and the characteristic ‘sheepy’ smell! To produce the yarn, the Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn and the Romney wool fibres are first blended and then dyed using a ‘recipe’ to create each of the 12 base colours. Each colour base is then blended with the undyed Zwartbles fibre creating the mélange effect. Once the yarn is spun, it is sent to Edward Hill’s Ltd in Bradford to be steam relaxed and balled in 50g donut balls. The steam finishing ‘open up’ the yarn creating the fullness, light appearance and handle.
