I get asked a lot about the fibres we use, I love these questions because it makes me work harder at finding out about where things come from, and how things are sourced. I frequently get asked about bamboo. Bamboo is generally touted to be an eco fibre, which to be honest makes me a little uncomfortable. Yes, it's sustainable and grows quickly, but when it comes to processing, well, this is where I take issue with the eco stance. The processing of most of the bamboo you find in clothes and yarn is actually 'viscose bamboo' and takes a fair amount of chemical processing using the viscose process, to put it bluntly, what you put in is not what you are getting out. It got me thinking, was there any way of using the fibres that have been a little less processed? i.e the fibre we think of as bamboo in its rawer state.
I asked our fibre guys about using raw bamboo, and everyone eye-rolled and said, no, it's not a nice fibre, it's coarse , like linen, etc. I eye-rolled back and said, please can I have a sample. Eventually, they gave in to my badgering, and send me what was actually a nice bunch of fibre, I could see the potential, and we had samples made.
The raw bamboo is marginally coarser than processed bamboo, however, once blended into the yarn, it's negligible, and makes a really lovely yarn. it's virtually impossible to tell our old and new bamboo yarns apart.
We are always looking to improve everything that goes into our yarns, and this although a small step, it's important to keep making improvements, lots of small steps lead to big impacts over time. We hope you will love the new yarns, We are replacing our current bamboo blends with the new eco bamboo, and also have a bamboo merino silk blend to add to the mix. I can't wait to see what you think of them :)
Our new merino bamboo blend is 49107N (N for natural bamboo). 80% Merino, 20% bamboo (exactly the same as the old bamboo, just with the natural bamboo in it).
We have a new 65% SW merino, 20% bamboo and 15% silk blend 49186N with the natural bamboo, 400m per 100g.
Jeni