Sue Blacker is a yarn composition virtuoso: Her small spinnery in Cornwall that she
has been running since 2005 specializes in all natural yarn with wool from British sheep. “The breeders bring or send us their fleeces, and we will make beautiful yarns from them – even in small quantities”, Sue says. Which fibers are suitable for which kind of yarn, whether it should be woolen or worsted spun and how it should be plied is her expertise. “The characteristics are very important: Thickness, drape, elasticity, luster and whether it’s hard-wearing or not. We help our clients to work that out”, Sue says. Of course, she employs this knowledge for her own yarn brand “Blacker Yarns” as well: She carries pure breed yarns like Shetland, Gotland and Bluefaced Leicester, but also blends with silk, linen or compositions of different wools. Yarns like this will also help sustain rare sheep breeds, which is a very important aspect of her work. But Sue Blacker is not only an entrepreneur, a fiber expert, a sheep breeder and wool activist, she also knits and designs: “I only knit items that I want, and I like projects that are suitably mindless.” Her favorite yarns are those that have body and “a presence”. For example  “Blacker Swan”: It is spun from Merino Fiber from the Swan Inlet Farm on the Falkland Islands, blended with just a tiny bit of colored Shetland wool, into a bouncy, wonderfully soft yarn.