West Wool Hex is our sixth yarn and it is spun and hand dyed in Peru. The Oeko-Tex certified base yarn contains 85% Superwash Superfine Merino and 15% Nylon, making it perfect for soft shawls, socks, and lightweight garments.
Hex features 50 semi-solid colourways designed to coordinate well with our other West Wool yarn.
Fibre:85% Superwash Superfine Merino | 15% Nylon
Weight:100g
Thickness:Fingering Weight
Construction:Plied
Length:400m | 437 yards
Gauge:26 stitches = 10cm | 4 inches
Needle Size: 2.25mm - 3.5mm | 1 - 4 US
Care:Hand wash cold, lay flat to dry
Before deciding to produce this new yarn, Stephen and Malia traveled to Peru and visited the dyers personally and spent several days working together with the dyers to get the colours we wanted and to be involved with the process.
We plan to add some variegated and speckled yarns to the palette, but those types of dye techniques are still in development with the dye house.
Hex is hand dyed in batches of 10 skeins at a time in a small family-run hand dyeing company in Peru. The company employs around 35 people. They don't use vat dyeing or commercial dyeing, it is an acid dye process. They use a colour lab where they weigh pigments and perform colour tests, so each batch is almost identical to the others.
The solid tones of Hex have a shadowy colour style, especially the darker tones, with subtle colour variation throughout the skein. This hand-dyed semi-solid dyeing technique adds depth and dimension to textured stitches with nuanced highlights and shadows in each colourway.
The dye company not only does batch dyeing by hand, like they do for us, but they also do hand painting and natural dyeing using plant materials and natural mordants. The dyers comply with Fair Trade regulations and they are also working towards becoming GOTS compliant, working towards a carbon footprint certification as they use mainly solar power.