A Homage to Flockly April 02 2025, 0 Comments

This blog post is an attempt to explain why I love this base so much. I recently described it as my Desert Island yarn - The one I'd take if I was cast away with no access to anything else to knit with for the rest of time - and it really is. If I could only knit with this base I would be happy. Let me explain why.

So what is Flockly?

Flockly is a blend of 70% Bluefaced Leicester, 20% Silk and 10% Cashmere, it has a 3 ply structure and is fingering weight, but what does this mean?

 Bluefaced Leicester is a British longwool sheep which means its wool has a staple length of between 7.5 and 15 cm (3" to 6"), it has a natural sheen or lustre which makes it excellent for dyeing and is finer than many other longwool breeds which makes it soft enough to be worn against the skin. The long fibres make any yarn spun from it resistant to wear and piling. 

Silk comes from the cocoons of silkworms and is it reeled off in one continuous strand and is very strong which also being very soft. It has an almost triangular cross-section and a smooth surface which means it reflects the light beautifully giving it natural shine and glow.
 Cashmere is an incredibly soft fibre which is collected from Cashmere Goats by combing their molting season. It is then sorted to remove any guard hairs leaving just the super soft undercoat which is finer and therefore softer than most sheep's wool including Merino.

These fibres are blended together and spun into thin strands called plys. A number of plys are then combined together by spinning in the opposite direction to make the finished yarn. This makes the yarn stronger than a single ply would be on its own. Flockly is a 3ply yarn which means 3 of these thin strands were combined to make the finished yarn. 3ply yarns are a lovely balance between strength, which increases with the number of plys, and softness, which decreases with the number of plys, meaning is is soft enough to be worn next to the skin but has good resistance to piling meaning your item will look great for longer.

 Fingering weight is the thickness of the yarn. It's also called (confusingly - I have written about this before here) 4ply, sock weight or 2 - fine. This is important when considering pattern choice. You also need to know there are 400m per 100g so you can calculate your yarn requirements.


So what to make with it?

As you can see Flockly is a very versatile yarn so it's great for a variety of different projects including shawls, accessories, socks and garments. If you search on Ravelry for projects made using Flockly you can see there are 175 different projects listed covering all these items and more here (Ravelry Link). Here are a few suggestions from me. I have suggested some free and some paid for ideas and noted which are Ravelry links in all cases.

Textured projects

It has lovely stitch definition so is great for textured knits and cables where you want the stitches to stand out such as in these Knotty Gloves (Ravelry Link) by Julia Mueller.

Another lovely textured pattern is the Geology Shawl (Ravelry Link) by Verybusymonkey which is a lovely knit and really keeps it interesting with the different textures in each section.


 

Lace Projects

It will also block nicely so is great for lace patterns. This shawl is called Thistle Rambles and the dark blue yarn is shawl is Flockly. This was knitted by me in 2016 and as you can see it has blocked out and shows the lace pattern off really well. 

Whitecotton's Silver Queen Handkerchief (Both Ravelry Links) by Virginia Catherall also shows a lovely lace edge and you can see how the yarn is keeping the lace stitches open.

 

 

Socks

Yes I know socks is always a good answer to the question of what to make but Flockly is actually really good as a sock yarn because of its long fibres, 3 ply structure and the added silk for strength will take the place of nylon in regular sock yarn. I knit it to a gauge of 34 stitches per 10 cm to give a nice firm fabric that wears well but is still soft and comfortable. This is my first sample for my Maltings Sock Pattern which I knitted in Flockly.

Hermione's Everyday Sock Pattern by Erica Lueder would work beautifully in Flockly for the same reasons other textured knits do.

 

 

And of course garments but I won't try and suggest patterns for those as its a very personal taste for style and fit. 

My Desert Island Yarn

So I hope you can now see why I would choose this really versatile base as my Desert Island Yarn and if you would like to see what we have in stock then our current colourways are here.

Currently (April 2025) we have just had a lovely big restock after its been out of stock for quite a few months so I hope you find something you like and I will be trying to keep it in stock as we go through the show season. I'm thinking my next blog post might be a fun one describing why I named the last batch what I did - what do you think? Would anyone find that interesting?