Last year, Saco River Dyehouse, who had bought the rights to produce Paternayan in 2013, went out of business. This leaves Colonial Needle and their Colonial Persian as the only company left making Paternayan’s wool. In 2013 went JCA sold off Paternayan Colonial bought the rights to make the base yarn. They are also committed to making the original colors. It’s an excellent thread and wonderful for lovers of Persian Wool.
Florilegium has a wonderful history of this storied thread that makes sense out of the twisty path it has taken.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Thanks for this update. I had just pulled some vintage circa 2012 Saco River Dyehouse bulk worsted weight yarn out of the deep stash to knit yet another wonderful springy cushy lace blanket and wondered how the company was doing. Probably hadn’t looked them up since ’18 when they were still working hard to pull their business model together.
Sad to hear it fell by the wayside.
Thank you also for the pointer to Florilegium, which I knew when I lived in Madison, WI, but lost touch when I left there…and am glad to see they’re in Missouri now. I owned an art conservation business in Madison in the ’90s, so circulated among serious creative people there. Madison’s microbusiness sector was gutted in the 2000s, and I give thanks every day that my husband’s work took me elsewhere.
I find it a source of deep concern that these long-standing traditions, processes, and products have such little underpinning to keep them going. I feel as though fiber workers–whose crafts and skills formed the very foundations of civilization from its earliest aeons in the human imagination/culture–are carrying a fragile spark and flame…which all the highfalutin’ and egotistical “Big Tech” activity in the world cannot replace. We really need to get back to supporting businesses that produce real things instead of all the money going to playing numbers/gambling games with people’s lives. And turning our very biology/bodies into real estate where increasingly tense and frightened egos squat in a box to shop on the internet using whatever social credit points they are awarded for appropriate acts of obeisance to their new feudal masters.