About the products

White Gum Wool yarn comes in a range of plys, all worsted—meaning the fibres are gilled to align them in the direction of spin—providing a silky, buttery feel and sheen to the yarn. 

Yarn styles

The 4- and 8-ply yarns are traditional "ring spun" plied yarns, corresponding to fingering and double-knit (DK) weights.  They are 100% White Gum Wool merino fibre.

The 30% silk, 70% merino blend 5-ply is another "ring-spun" plied yarn, corresponding to a sport weight.

The bouclé is a wrapped yarn with a soft core and thin thread wrapping it.  Unlike a traditional stiff bouclé, this is more like a soft chenille, with lots of loft.  It corresponds to about a 12-ply or chunky weight.  Bouclé is 100% White Gum Wool merino fibre.

The Sock yarn is the same weight as the 4-ply, but has 20% nylon reinforcing to improve wear.

An experimental bouclé rope yarn has just arrived.  It is made by plying four strands of the bouclé into a single rope.  It is only available in She-oak Heather at this stage.

Heather yarns are another new addition to the collection.  These are "dyed-in-the-wool" yarns, where several colours are dyed as loose fibre, then blended together to give a tweed-like look, but with the same lovely soft feel of all White Gum Wool yarns.  Heather yarns are 100% White Gum Wool merino fibre.

Quality

White Gum Wool yarns are made from 17-micron, superfine “saxon” merino wool.  This is the calibre of wool used in the finest of Italian men’s suiting, and gives an amazing softness and handle to the yarn.  White Gum Wool is naturally bright white, nearly snowy, and the dyed colours are inspired by the landscape where the wool is grown.  

Like so many things in life, superfine yarn has its trade-offs:  the very thing that makes it lovely and soft next to your skin also gives it more tendency to pill than a yarn made from a harsher, broader micron.  It also felts beautifully, when you want it to (and even when you don't).  The simplest solution to pilling is to use a high quality fabric shaver to remove the pills as they appear.  The Classic 50 fabric shaver is highly recommended by a number of experienced knitters who use White Gum Wool.