Tavistock Tastes and Textures - 01822 612108

We produce and sell hand-dyed pure Jacob DK and Light Aran wool in a range of rich heathery colours using fleece from our pedigree flock of Jacob sheep.

We are a husband and wife team who run a 17-acre smallholding at Tor Grove Farm on the outskirts of Tavistock in Devon. We have a small flock of pedigree Jacob Sheep, and a few Jacob/Herdwick crosses. These provide the meat for our lamb and hogget boxes and the fleece for our wool products. We also raise pigs which we sell in half or quarter packs for the freezer.
Jacob Sheep are a traditional breed of sheep which produces lean, tender meat and a high quality fleece. They are fairly slow to mature and so our lambs are usually kept until they are around twelve months old (when they become hoggets). During this time they are fed primarily on grass and hay, this gives the meat its wonderful flavour.
We shear the sheep once a year in June and send the best fleeces to be commercially spun. The resulting mid-grey/brown yarn is then hand-dyed to achieve a range of rich, heathery colours.. It is a joy to knit with and very warm.

Our yarn is spun for us by the Natural Fibre Company in Launceston, Cornwall, and then hand-dyed on our farm using dyes from the "Landscapes" range produced by Kraftkolour of Australia. As with all hand-dyed products, some colour may bleed from the yarn when first washed, so knitted items should be washed by hand separately. However, this does not cause a problem where two or more different colours are used in one garment, as the dye has been exhausted and will not adhere.
We sell our wool in 100g balls, in either Double Knitting or Light Aran weight. For patterns that state the quanitity of yarn required in metres/yards, the respective lengths are 280mtrs/303yds for DK and 200mtrs/216yds for Light Aran. Our prices are as follows:
DK Dyed £9.50, DK Natural and Silver £8, Light Aran Dyed £9 amd Light Aran Natural £7.50

Tags: Farm