About Our Shop

Bluefaced is the sister company to Chester Wool Co. We sell single hanks of all our yarns and also occasionally have part packs at wholesale prices on our 'Special Offers' page. Twice a year we run an event called 'Sample It' which gives you the opportunity to buy 500g packs of all our yarns at just over wholesale prices.

ABOUT our BLUEFACEd leicester

Characteristics

The Bluefaced Leicester is the finest commercial 'Lustre' Wool in the world, the brightness and softness is due to the lack of scales on the surface of the fibre compared to other wools.

After our grading (sorting) process the processed fibre is 25micron in diameter and similar in character to the finest Mohair and Alpaca.

The breed is completely unique to the British Isles.

Material Selection and Grading

Chester Wool Co. buys the Bluefaced Leicester Wool through the British Wool Marketing Board in its raw state (fleece). Selection and Grading is key in our ability to take any raw material of variable nature and select and break down in to saleable commercial component for further process. The grading or 'sorting' occurs in Bradford.

We generally only use 50% of the fleece for our yarns, in this way we can maintain the fineness and suitability for hand knitting/dyeing. The courser fibres are used for bedding and insulation.

Scouring and Combing

Our Bluefaced Leicester gets scoured and combed in Bradford.

Spinning

After combing the wool sliver (top) is sent to our mill in South America for blending and spinning into yarns. Great care is taken at all stages of process to ensure consistent quality of this unique fibre!