Like all our Birthday Yarns, Cornish Garden is woollen spun to achieve a light, fluffy, silky yarn with a strong memory to increase elasticity and resilience. For 2019 we have used fine fibres for a 3-ply yarn as well as a thicker Sport weight yarn.

For our 14th Birthday, we have combined some soft fine and rare English Merinos with a few other special things. The yarn has 39% blended white and fawn Merino and Merino Cross with 2% Romney, plus 17% fawn and grey Shetland, 25% blue-faced Leicester and 17% recycled noils from our mill. The Merino and Shetland provide natural colour and the Shetland reduces the Merino Romney bulk. Then the Bluefaced Leicester adds lustre to enhance the dye shades as well as reducing bulk further and adding drape. The noils add texture and interest to both natural and dyed shades and are more environmentally sustainable than ahimsa silk or bought-in nepps. The resulting yarn is a warm, pale fawn-grey, happy to take a complementary darker brown-grey and four bright dye shades for a cheerful birthday palette. The noils and fine fibre make for a machine spun yarn with a natural handle and a pleasing slightly uneven style.

We have chosen Cornish Gardens as our theme for this year and have been privileged to gain permission to name our colours after six special gardens, each of which has a feature which links to the particular shade. These are featured in our blog. Because woollen spun yarns are bulky and with the fibre composition we have chosen, the 3-ply yarn will work well at a 4-ply gauge and the Sport will work at DK and Light Aran gauges too.