Hope you do not mind me asking, how do I know your yarn is genuine?

This is a great question, and I am enthusiastic about customers buying genuine hand dyed yarn, so much so I can rant on the subject! I want people to know when they are buying hand dyed yarn/fibre, it is hand dyed and not machine made to look like it.

This is my reply when people ask me, ‘how do I know it is hand dyed'?

1. Hand dyed yarn/fibre cannot be replicated exactly, even if it is dyed in the same pan, every individual skein will be slightly different. Hand dyed yarn is often dyed in small batches, if you see a large amount (row and rows) of ‘hand dyed yarn/fibre,’ the same in colour, pattern, and uniformity, then question if it has been hand dyed.
2. Ask the seller the provenance of the yarn, how and where it was made and if someone else has dyed it up, check out that hand dyers work. A genuine hand dyer will be more than happy to talk about their craft, how it was made, the process, so much so you may be there a while! If you follow us on social media, we video the making of our yarn from start to finish of the yarn/fibre to show full transparency.
3. Always check how much wool vs nylon is in the yarn, we use merino yarn, which is made up of 75% merino wool and 25% nylon or pure wool such as blue faced Leicester, and all our fibre braids are 100% wool. Check the label or ask the dyer how to care for the yarn, hand dyed yarn is normally hand wash only and commercial yarn will be machine washable.
4. How much are you paying for it, if it is cheap (say half of a normal price skein) has it been hand dyed? I have seen (on cheap websites) four skeins of ‘hand dyed’ yarn for half the cost of one average hand dyed skein, packs of them, in the same colour, pattern and uniformity – how can that be hand dyed, individually by a hand dyer? What if you pay full price for it and its not hand dyed yarn? Showing off your project only for you to realise that the hand dyed yarn you paid full price for, is a cheap manufactured imitation?

Even I have been caught out in the past, I have bought fibre, really excited by the vibrant, perfection of the colours (which is hard to get when dyeing fibre), realising they were machine dyed and I could have bought them myself online.

At the end of the day, it is your choice what you buy, just pause and ask the questions if you want to make sure the yarn your buying is what it says it is.

From Your friendly Fox, Andrea.