A lovely naturally-dyed wool is now available from France. A crewel weight wool
Renaissance Wool (
If you’ve ever had a lambswool sweater, you’ll know what I mean when I say it is superbly
soft in the skein, a softness which translate into full stitches on the canvas. I was just
stitching on 12 mesh with 3 strands and it looks like a single strand of a much thicker
wool. According to their website, the thread is “spun especially for us in Yorkshire,
England, it is a 24/2 worsted lamb’s wool ply with wonderful handle and an astonishing
resistance to thinning and ‘fluffing’.” It comes in 25m skeins and 100m and 250m hanks.
There are 100 colors, with as many as five colors in some families.
Twenty-five of the colors are in the Elizabethan Range, a set of colors dyed with the dyes
and mordants available in the Sixteenth Century.
The threads are naturally dyed, a process which creates color of more complexity than
chemically-dyed threads, as well as color which harmonize together. The company
suggest using more than one color in a needle (called needle-blending) to extend the
color choices.
On their website, they have several 12 packs of colors which work together. There are also
two different color sets of naturally-dyed embroidery floss (listed as mouline) and some
unique results of wool dyed with two different dyes. New textile packs are added regularly.
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
Thank you 🙂
I carry the Renaissance dyeing wool and its a lovely thread. Very soft, not like appleton crewel. Colors are gorgeous, its been most popular for animals with needlepointers and quilters love it for doing wool felt appliqué.