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color of sustainability

creating yarn colors without dyes!


When it comes to recycled wool yarn, creating yarn colors with no dyes simply takes advantage of the colors that discarded garments used to have in their previous life and creating a recipe! Just like a painter mixing paint colors on a palette, it is an art to create recycled wool yarn colors without dyes and chemicals.

1

Raw materials

Obtain colorful fibers from pre- and post-consumer garments that have been sorted by composition and – most importantly – by color to form bales of rags that are recycled or "shredded" into recycled wool fibres.

2

Select the fibres

Raw material artisans, called Feltrinisti choose the wool fibres from these bales - just as a painter does from his color palette - to create a new recycled wool color.   

3

Create a recipe

Create a recycled wool 'color recipe' by mixing numerous and different shades of recycled wool fibres in specific percentages, developing actual ‘recipes’ of no-dye colors.  

4

Carding the recipe

The ‘color recipe’ is carded with a traditional machine (a Cardina) that cleans, mixes and parallelizes the different shades of recycled wool fibers. After 4-5 carding cycles to mix them as much as possible, the result is a trial felt (or Feltrino) that shows the new, mélange color obtained, with no dyes and chemicals.

5

Validate the recipe 

Raw material artisans then compare the requested color with the one achieved through the carding of the ‘color recipe’. If the achieved color is not quite right, artisans repeat the whole process until the trial felt’s color perfectly matches the requested color. 

6

A new color is born

Once the trial felt’s color is approved, the ‘color recipe’ is archived and officially becomes a new recycled wool color. Very cool. 

So when an order is placed, the ‘color recipe’ is adapted (just like a kitchen recipe when you cook for 12 people instead of 6 people!) and all ingredients are multiplied by the kgs of yarns that must be produced.  

Then all materials are sent to the spinning mill, where they will be carded, spun and twisted to produce ‘new’ recycled wool yarns - just like ours at spun•up!!