Bluefaced Leicester Characteristics

The Bluefaced Leicester is the finest commercial 'Lustre' Wool in the world, the brightness and softness is due to the lack of scales on the surface of the fibre compared to other wools.

After our grading (sorting) process the processed fibre is 25micron in diameter and similar in character to the finest Mohair and Alpaca

The breed is completely unique to the British Isles

Material Selection and Grading

HW Hammand buys the Bluefaced Leicester Wool through the British Wool Marketing Board in its raw state (fleece). Selection and Grading is key in our ability to take any raw material of variable nature and select and break down in to saleable commercial component for further process.

Grading or 'sorting' occurs in Bradford

We generally only use 50% of the fleece for the knitted products, in this way we can maintain the fineness and suitability for knitwear production

Scouring and Combing

It is with deep regret that we have to say that we can find no suitable facility to wash (scour) and comb to a correct standard the Bluefaced Leicester within the UK, we now send the graded wool to Europe for this process

Spinning

After combing in Europe the wool sliver (top) is returned to the UK for spinning

Great care is taken at all stages of process to ensure consistent quality of this unique fibre!