Most Icelandic sheep fleeces are processed by the company Ístex.
Among their products are some yarn qualities that are fully Icelandic: the sheep of course are local, but also the washing, the dyeing, the yarn creation and the yarn ball processing. I am happy to use a yarn which has not travelled too far to be processed, its only significant travel being its final journey to my stash.
Icelandic sheep have, over the course of the years, developed a specific kind of wool, consisting in 2 layers: the inner layer, shorter, finer and warm, and the outer layer, longer, coarser and water-proof. Both of them are used to create the lopi yarn. The special dual-quality of the fleece allows to create a yarn which does not need to be spun tightly. The resulting sweaters are very fluffy.
Istex manufactures different yarns of the lopi family :
- Fjallalopi (150m = 50gr), the finest spun
- Lettlopi (100m = 50gr), spun
- Plötulopi (150m = 50gr), unspun.
- Alafosslopi, the historical one, spun very thick (50m = 50gr) – not on picture
For my sweaters, I only use their unspun lopi, the Plötulopi. Unspun means that you are nearly directly working with the sheep fiber, only carded. It is trickier to use because the yarn can break easily, but once you get the hang of it, it creates very fluffy sweaters, and – though the yarn looks fragile – once knitted the sweaters are actually very strong.
Morever, using 2 strands of this unspun yarn makes it possible to have very fine color mixes.
This is how the color gradients of these two sweaters are made.
This yarn consists of pure new Icelandic wool, untreated.
It has the OEKO-TEX certification.
There are of course other yarn producers in Iceland, but they make smaller batches and their yarn is harder to find outside out of Iceland.
I love to visit them and buy from them when I have a chance, and if you visit Iceland, I strongly encourage you to check the producers and dyers from the Woolen Circle.
I am lucky to visit Iceland often, so I mostly buy my yarn from Icelandic yarn shops and bring it home.
And I am twice lucky because the french online shop trIScote is doing a wonderful job importing every Ístex lopi quality and color, so when I need a refill, this online shop is my preferred one.
And of course, talking about the yarn would not be complete without them :
