A: Our wool comes in two weights – tapestry (4 ply) and crewel (2 ply). It also comes in over 400 colours — see our Buy Wool page for the full colour range. The colours are the same in both weights.

Crewel and tapestry weights

Both weights are sold as either hanks (25g) or as skeins (about a sixth of a hank). Hanks are unlabelled and twisted; skeins come with a paper label including their shade number. To give you an idea of the difference in the weights, a crewel hank is roughly 180m in length and a crewel skein about 25m. A tapestry hank on the other hand, while still being 25g in weight, is much shorter – only about 55m – as the wool is so much denser. A tapestry skein will measure around 10m in length.

Skein and hank

A: The wool page will be a good starting point, however, each computer screen will give its own distortion to the actual image. The only way to really check is to get hold of a shade card which has a small sample of each colour we sell on it. The wool sample is in tapestry wool, as it is thicker and therefore more representative, but the colours are identical in the finer (crewel) wool.

A: Yes! Contact us (sales@appletons.org.uk) for more details. We don’t offer sole distributorships but would love to hear from you if you would like to stock our wool or our kits.

A: Yes but only if you become a wholesaler – please contact us.

The colour fastness of the dyes used on our wool is rated as 5-6 on the ‘grey scale’ with the exception of the fluorescent dyes which are rated at 2-3.

Please note that we would always strongly recommend keeping dyed wool out of direct sunlight as, over time, it will always have an effect.

A: All mothproofing agent have been banned by the Environment agency due to their toxicity and harm to aquatic life. However, our dyers are currently exploring a non-toxic and safe alternative. We will let you know as soon as it is available!!

A: We don’t recommend washing our wool other than sponging with cold water if necessary.

A: Wool is naturally flame retardant.