Fibre Focus Friday: Galway

Our brand new Galway fibre is a little bit special, and we're going to tell you it's story.

To start this tale we need to cross the Irish sea and Ireland itself until we find ourselves in County Galway in the West of Ireland.  Here is where the Galway breed was developed and refined from the 1600s onwards.  This breed is large and polled (hornless) with white wool on their heads and legs.  Their fleeces tend to have a medium staple length with good crimp and spring and a micron count of 28 - 33.  For reference, a similar handle would be Southdown.

The Galway is Ireland's only native breed and the wool has been used in Aran sweaters and Irish tweed, giving it a strong connection to its Irish heritage.  Despite this there are less than 2,000 breeding ewes (not just in Ireland - in the world!) which means this a minority breed.

Earlier this year our friends at Donegal Yarns mentioned that they were working with Galway Wool Co-op and that they had purebred Galway available.  This is something that we can't get here in the UK, so we jumped at the chance to be able to say that our Galway fibre comes from the Galway Wool Co-op!  Formed in 2021 the Co-op brings together breeders of pedigree, registered Galway sheep who are passionate about their flocks and their fibre.  By working together the members are able to produce larger quantities of fibre and also get a better, fairer wool price.  After their annual shearing, the fibre is gathered, sorted and either sent for processing or bought by interested parties - like us!

What we love about this fibre is its versatility.  Being a naturally cream/white it will take all tones of dye colour without issue which means you can work with it in its natural form or at a bit of colour to your craft.  It's proven as a knitting yarn in generations of Aran jumpers and has the most fantastic stitch definition once it has been knitted up.  Not only are we excited about what we can do with it - we want to see what you, our creative customers, will make too!

Finally we have a closing note from the Galway Wool Co-op;

"On behalf of our members, we are thrilled to have World of Wool carry our heritage product and look forward to supporting Richard and his team as they embark on this exciting journey with our rare and remarkable Galway Wool."

You can find our Galway wool HERE.