Lopi
Encyclopedia
Lopi is knitting wool made from the fleece of Icelandic sheep
. The fleece is made up of two layers, each with a different kind of wool. The wet-resistant outer coat contains long, coarse fibres, while the insulating layer beneath consists of soft, short fibres. These are processed together to create lopi roving
and yarn.
The machine-carded
roving is produced in disc-shaped rolls. This is the original unspun lopi first used for knitting around 1900. More recently, lightly spun lopi yarn in different thicknesses has been available.
All wool produced in Iceland is processed by Istex, the Icelandic Textile Company. They manufacture 3 types of spun lopi yarn and also unspun lopi. It comes in a variety of natural fleece shades, and in a range of dyed colours.
Characteristic Icelandic lopapeysa
sweaters are generally made from the thicker lopi yarns.
Icelandic sheep
The Icelandic sheep is a breed of domestic sheep. The Icelandic breed is one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep, which exhibit a fluke-shaped, naturally short tail. The Icelandic is a mid-sized breed, generally short legged and stocky, with face and legs free of wool...
. The fleece is made up of two layers, each with a different kind of wool. The wet-resistant outer coat contains long, coarse fibres, while the insulating layer beneath consists of soft, short fibres. These are processed together to create lopi roving
Roving
A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fibre. It is usually used to spin woollen yarn. A roving can be created by carding the fibre, and it is then drawn into long strips. Because it is carded, the fibres are not parallel, though drawing it into strips may line the fibres up a bit...
and yarn.
The machine-carded
Carding
Carding is a mechanical process that breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres so that they are more or less parallel with each other. The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool...
roving is produced in disc-shaped rolls. This is the original unspun lopi first used for knitting around 1900. More recently, lightly spun lopi yarn in different thicknesses has been available.
All wool produced in Iceland is processed by Istex, the Icelandic Textile Company. They manufacture 3 types of spun lopi yarn and also unspun lopi. It comes in a variety of natural fleece shades, and in a range of dyed colours.
Characteristic Icelandic lopapeysa
Lopapeysa
Lopapeysa or Icelandic sweater is an Icelandic style of sweater originating around or before the 50´s. At a time when foreign imports had displaced older and more traditional Icelandic clothing and people began to search for new ways to utilize the plentiful native wool...
sweaters are generally made from the thicker lopi yarns.