Before traveling to Madrid and Toledo, I extensively researched and discovered wonderful treasures! The first is the company, Wooldreamers. This is a fifth-generation wool processor trying to make a difference in the low valuation of wool in Spain. Although merino wool originates in Spain and was one of Spain’s greatest imports—some say it helped fund Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the new world—it has fallen into disfavor as in America. The trends of synthetic fibers and processing any wool here in Asia or other countries has led to sheepherders in both the US and Spain only earning pennies on the dollar for their sheep’s fleeces and actually losing moneyto have their sheep sheared to keep them cool in spring/summer months. However, just as in the US, there is a rising appreciation for natural wool and sustainable textiles, so Spanish companies like Wooldreamers are starting to pop up. If you wish to investigate this company more, you can find Spanish language interviews with them here and here.
Manchelopi
For those of you who have explored woolly wools from Iceland such as Léttlopi or Plöttulopi, its unspun sister, Manchelopi greatly resembles Plöttulopi except that it is MUCH softer! It comes from the same Manchego sheep that produce Manchego cheese, and this 1ply fragile yarn is marvelously soft and comes in 2plies which you can separate off to make a fingering accessory or knit together to produce a dk weight. I have purchased a handmade wood yarn spindle to use with it because unspun yarns like Plöttulopi or Manchelopi break easily if you pull on them and then have to be spit spliced back together. I have heard putting this yarn on a spindle and gently unwinding the cake is a better way to prevent the yarn from breaking.
One of the best aspects of preparing to travel to Spain was watching lively Spanish podcasts to learn the vocabulary used in Spanish yarn shops. “Madeja” means skein, versus the word “pelota” I already knew, for a ball of yarn. By the way, the word for yarn is “hilo,” and the word for wool is “lana.” Also, “lana autóctona” is the correct term to use for indigenous yarn, in this case, merino yarn originating in Spain. Through watching fun Spanish-language podcasts such as Beagle Knits and Tejer en Inglés, I discovered a vibrant knitting community in Spain, embracing knitting groups, Spanish-language podcasts, yarn festivals such as Barcelona Knits and Love Yarn Madrid. My best source of Wooldreamers yarn in Madrid was a little boutique named Trizas y Trazos, which also carried other beautiful woolly wools. There I got my hands on Wooldreamers’ Dehesa de Barrera, a scrumptiously soft Spanish merino that comes from a very high-quality merino sheep farm in Estremadura, Spain. It’s 448 yards or 100 grams of 3ply fingering yarn for $26 or $27 dollars, and in the US you can buy it here: I purchased 3 skeins for a cardigan at trizas y Trazos and I just can’t wait to knit with it!!!!
Next to my skeins of Dehesa de Barrera you will find a natural skein of Wooldreamers’ Mota, which comes in 230meter/252 yard balls or 100 grams of worsted 2ply yarn from the Manchego sheep. Belén of the Tejer en Inglés podcast offers several patterns you can use with this yarn—I know they are available in Spanish but probably English as well, as she is bilingual and lives in Oxford, England. Mota is thick and smooth and buttery and is on its way to become a gorgeous cabled cowl. For those of you interested in knitting tourism, there were about 10 yarn stores in Madrid alone, and two more in Toledo. Fabulous merceries and fabric stores were also easy to find and I purchased some fabulous sale wool fabric from Italy for about $25.
Speaking of wool, I’ve finished several projects using my deadstock fabric that I blogged about a bit ago for my Snow White capsule wardrobe. I will have to get help photographing those outfits so I can get them into the blog! In the meantime, I will leave you with one more important Spanish yarn company name, which is dLana*. dLana* is at the forefront of raising awareness in Spain about the importance of wool and paying shepherds a fair wage for it. They launch small-batch yarns using Spanish merino and have even used crowd funding to help produce a lovely yarn recently called Sorrosal. Although that was not available at stores, I was lucky enough to purchase an incredibly affordable merino called Madrilana when I visited Miss Kit’s knitting store, founded in Barcelona with a sister city in Madrid. The Madrilana yarn offers 450 meters for only 13.5 euros per skein!! Wow! I have been planning to knit a striped pullover with short sleeves in a vintage style so I chose a bold red and pretty mottled dark grey to go with it. What a deal! I just can't wait to start knitting some of this yarn!