In the mill, one of the most labour-intensive steps is skein winding. It’s mechanised - depending on the machine we’re using, we can wind either 12 or 24 at a time - but every skein still needs hand tying, hand twisting, labelling and packing.

By switching from 50g to 100g skeins for most of our bases, we’re effectively halving the number of skeins that pass through those finishing stages. In practical terms, that almost doubles capacity there.

On top of that, we’ve had a steady stream of you asking for bigger skeins over the years. We’ve resisted for a while, but it feels like the right time to make the switch.

A couple of bases are staying as 50g for the foreseeable future: Number 1 and Snowdonia. Both benefit from the flexibility of smaller skeins, particularly for colourwork. Changing those felt unnecessary.

The improved efficiency also helps us manage rising costs. Electricity in particular has climbed sharply, and most other inputs haven’t stood still either. Increasing skein size is one of the ways we can keep price rises as small - and as infrequent - as possible.