Katla Gift Sampler

Katla, spun with love…

Icelandic wool poses a unique challenge: composed of two very different types or hair, the long and coarse “tog” and the fine and short “þel”, it is very difficult to spin into a fine yarn and no mill in Iceland is able to make such a fine yarn as Love Story Einband. The lamb fleeces selected by Hélène from Icelandic farmers are therefore sent to specialty mills in Italy which are the only one to be able to handle this challenge. See the blog post I wrote about the making of my yarns here. Katla is made of 4 strands of Love Story yarn that have been tightly spun together with a very fine silk filament. It can be used as a yarn base for indie dyers. Katla has his name from a famous Icelandic trolless, see her story here.

The wool is washed with an organic soap and dried very gently so that it stays soft. Five of the colors are composed of the natural colors of the Icelandic sheep (white, brown, black and grey). The white is not bleached and serves as the base for the other 15 colors which are dyed with acid-dyes with low impact processes. The water used for the washing and dyeing process is recycled so that no harmful material is released into the open water.

Katla comes in 11 colors: four natural colors of the Icelandic lamb (white, black – a very rich and dark brown -,  brown and grey; and 7 colors inspired by the Icelandic landscape. Note that the colors shown are as closed as they can be from the real colors but there can be variations from one monitor to another, as well as from one dyelot to another.

The black and white picture shows the colors values and will hopefully make it easier for you to choose contrasting colors for your stranded knitting projects.

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Illustrations on labels by Charline Picard