At Garthenor Organic, we’ve built our whole business around a simple promise: to make the best yarn we can, with as little compromise as possible. That means sourcing organic fibre, spinning it carefully in our own mill, and keeping our impact on the planet as low as we can. Every decision, from the breeds we work with to the way we tie our skeins, is shaped by that commitment. It’s the reason we became the world’s first company to gain GOTS certification for yarn, and why we continue to invest time, energy, and resources into maintaining that standard across almost everything we produce.

Fallow is the exception. It’s a yarn we’re deeply proud of, but it doesn’t fit into the GOTS system in the same way as our other yarns. By its nature, it can’t. And rather than sidestep that fact or dress it up in marketing language, we want to be clear about why. Fallow is made from organic fibre. It’s spun in our organically certified mill. It’s handled using only GOTS-approved spinning oils and processes. But it isn’t certified organic. In this article, we’ll explain why that is, what makes Fallow different, and why we believe that honesty is as important as the yarn itself.

To understand why Fallow can’t carry the certification, you need to understand what GOTS actually means in practice. For most people, the word “organic” suggests a level of purity or quality, but it’s worth noting that “organic” isn’t a legally protected term when it comes to textiles. Anyone can put it on a label, and plenty do, with very little to back it up. GOTS is different. It’s the most rigorous textile standard in the world, and it demands complete traceability from farm to finished product. Every kilo of fibre we bring into the mill is documented. Every stage of scouring, blending, combing, spinning, and winding is logged. Independent inspectors come to the mill, go through our records, and verify that the paper trail matches the yarn in front of them. It’s not light work. The paperwork stacks up almost as quickly as the yarn. But it matters, because it means when we say a skein of Number 2 is organic Shetland, we can prove it. We can show you the farms it came from, the sheep it grew on, and the journey it took to reach your needles. That unbroken chain of custody is what makes certification meaningful.

Fallow doesn’t fit that system, because by design, it isn’t fully traceable. The fibre that becomes Fallow comes from the edges of production - the early runs when we’re threading up the gillbox or comb, the short ends left at the tail of a batch, the precious handfuls caught in Florence’s Pneumafil suction when we’re testing or fixing a breakage. It’s all perfectly good fibre: clean, undyed, and certified organic when it entered the mill. But once those pieces start mingling, the precise record-keeping required by GOTS breaks down. We can no longer say with certainty which sheep, farm, or bale a particular tuft came from. And without that level of detail, we can’t call it certified organic.

For us, this isn’t a failing. It’s a choice. From the very beginning, we decided our mill would be zero waste. The noil from combing is saved and sold for toy stuffing. Short ends of yarn get tied around parcels or wound into mini skeins. Even the trimmings snipped when we finish skeins are gathered and composted here on the farm. Nothing is wasted. So when we saw this fibre quietly building up in the Pneumafil box or the setup runs, we didn’t see it as useless. We saw potential. We started setting it aside in a trolley marked “Fallow,” and over time it grew into something worth spinning. Fallow is the result: a yarn made not from discards or scraps, but from organic reclaimed wool that just didn’t quite make it into the plan.

It would be easy for us to gloss over the distinction. To say “organic fibre” on the label and leave it at that. But we think it’s important to be clear, because certification isn’t just a badge for us. It’s part of the trust we’ve built with our customers, and it’s part of the integrity of the work we do. Fallow is organic in fibre, but not in certification, and that’s an important difference. It shows both how much effort goes into our certified yarns, and how seriously we take the responsibility of using every part of the fibre we bring into the mill.

That responsibility is why we’re proud of Fallow, even though it doesn’t fit neatly into the GOTS system. Sustainability is bigger than one label. Our certification is central to our work, but it’s not the whole story. Fallow is proof that there are other ways to make good, honest yarn that respects the fibre and the planet. It’s not an exception to our values, but a complement to them. In fact, it highlights how much those values shape everything we do. The only reason Fallow exists is because we refused to waste good fibre. And the only reason it isn’t certified is because we won’t pretend that “organic” is a catch-all term that can be used without accountability.

For knitters, the difference might not be immediately visible. Fallow is a sportweight yarn with softness, loft, and bounce. It’s smooth enough for garments, with texture and depth from the mix of undyed breeds and shades that came together in this first batch. It comes in three natural shades - Rest, Return, and Interval - and it pairs beautifully with our certified ranges, especially Number 2, for colourwork or contrast. On the needles, it behaves like any of our other yarns. The distinction isn’t in the knitting; it’s in the record-keeping. And that’s the part we want you to understand.

Every batch of Fallow will be different. That’s the beauty of it. The fibre we collect depends on what we’re spinning, what we’re testing, and how the mill is running. Sometimes there will be more, sometimes less. The shades will shift, the blends will vary, and no two runs will ever be the same. That unpredictability is part of the story. It’s what makes Fallow exciting for us to make, and what makes it special for you to knit with. But it’s also the reason it will never be certified organic. That’s the trade-off we’ve accepted: perfect traceability on one hand, or perfect sustainability on the other. With Fallow, we’ve chosen the latter.

So why is Fallow organic, and why isn’t it? It’s organic because it’s made entirely from certified organic wool, spun in our certified organic mill, with approved processes and oils. It isn’t organic because we can’t prove the precise path each handful of fibre took to get here. Both statements are true, and both matter. We believe that transparency is more valuable than a simple label. We’d rather explain the nuance than hide behind a word.

In the end, Fallow is a yarn that tells two stories at once. One is about the rigour and integrity of GOTS certification, and the effort that goes into keeping every other yarn in our range fully traceable and certified. The other is about the creativity and responsibility that come from refusing to waste what we have. Together, they show what Garthenor Organic stands for: honesty, accountability, and a deep respect for wool in all its forms. Fallow might not carry the same certification as our other yarns, but it carries the same values. And to us, that’s just as important.