As part of our 10 year anniversary celebration, we are delighted to introduce a whole new yarn weight!
Our new 10 ply is revolutionary for us. We’ve always wanted to carry an Aran weight yarn, but our superfine fibre makes pilling more likely as the yarn diameter increases. (That’s because there are lots more fibres in the cross-section of superfine yarn, which means a higher number of them will stick out sideways, forming the basis for a pill nubbin.)
Twist-on-twist style spinning has made our new 10 ply possible. A twist-on-twist spin uses a finer single yarn than our original yarn. The finer single is plied first in pairs or triplets, and then multiple pairs are plied together to get the desired weight. The result is a more robust yarn, with those pesky sideways fibres firmly tucked inside the interior twists. Happily, although the twist-on-twist yarn looks a bit different, it knits up with the same WGW trademark softness and handle.
For example, our original 8 ply is made up of four singles, all plied together (green yarn in the image above). The new twist-on-twist 8 ply (pink yarn) uses four triplets of the finer single. The new 10 ply Aran has five triplets, as you can see in Apple Blossom, below.
At the moment, we have seven colours in our new 10 ply Aran yarn, including two new multi-colours from Rebecca Robinson of Augustbird: Apple Blossom and Rose Hip.
We’re delighted with the new 10 ply, and will gradually transition all of our 4 ply fingering, 5 ply sport and 8 ply DK yarns to ‘twist-on-twist’.
