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Yarn Profile: Imperial Stock Ranch 2-Ply DK-Weight Yarn

First Impressions
Imperial Stock Ranch has seen grazing sheep on its land for more than 125 years. Its founder, Richard Rolland Hinton, was a respected sheepman whose crossbreeding efforts helped develop the Columbia sheep breed.

Although Hinton is long gone, the farm continues to run Columbia sheep and raise cattle and wheat. The headquarters have been designated a national historic district.

After it is shorn, the fleece is sent to a small family mill in Canada (as is done by Beaverslide Dry Goods) where it's prepared using antique equipment and chemical-free, environmentally responsible techniques.

This gentle processing retains almost all of the fiber's natural softness and sheen, but also much of the stray vegetable matter in the fibers. They are easily removed, and the sacrifice&madsh;at least in my mind&madsh;is well worth it.

I should also note that my yarn had almost no scent of lanolin, a common element of many other "raw" farm yarns.

Knitting Up
I love working with yarns like this one because their sponginess and elasticity remind me of the final kneading of well-risen bread dough before it gets popped into the oven. You can tug and stretch the yarn as much as you'd like, but it always bounces back into form.

The yarn's loosely plied two strands occasionally came unplied while I was working with them, and a few times I ended up snagging only one of the two plies by mistake. Also, when held under tension the yarn appears thinner in spots, which led me to mistakenly identify those spots as snags of only one strand instead of two.

I got far more comfortable with the yarn as I went along, and by my final swatch I made far fewer mistakes. Despite the yarn's jumbled, feltlike, and occasionally irregular appearance, it produced a smooth and cohesive piece of fabric.

The yarn's matte surface texture gives cables and ribbing an attractive stitch definition without being too loud, while pure stockinette is equally attractive.

Blocking / Washing
Columbia fibers are particularly lofty yet lightweight. My swatches needed a hefty dunking before they stopped floating on top of their bath. I couldn't detect any bleeding in the water, although my yarn's modest coloring could be a factor.

My swatches required almost no blocking whatsoever&madsh;just a gentle tug here and there. They dried perfectly square and flat, fibers relaxing and blooming gently with only a minuscule expansion in gauge.

This yarn is an excellent candidate for fulling projects. Consequently, if you don't want a fulled garment, be gentle in the wash&madsh;avoid any excessive rubbing or agitation.

Wearing
Columbia fibers aren't as soft as merino, but they still fall high on the softness scale. Lightweight and spongy in texture, my swatches produced nary an itch against my skin. The more I washed my swatches, the more the fibers bloomed and the softer they became.

The yarn's already matte and feltlike appearance helped mask signs of wear and tear, even after several minutes of constant taunting. Tiny pills slowly appeared here and there, but they were only visible up close and easy to remove.

As it ages, I can see an Imperial Stock Ranch sweater becoming that favorite old cuddly sweater you wear by the fire on rainy weekends.

Conclusion
For many years, Imperial Stock Ranch yarns were only available from a few stores. Recent forays to TNNA have expanded the yarn company's distribution significantly—which means you might even, if you're really lucky, find some of this wonderful yarn at your own LYS.

With so many wool yarns on the market, why should you bother going out of your way to find this one? For starters, a simple medium-sized women's sweater falls in the $80 range, which is reasonable for fibers of this quality. But perhaps more important, when you've cast off that final stitch, you'll be wearing a tale of Western expansion and the American dream.

You're wearing the story of how one man, equipped with just a saddle horse, pack horse, and six-gun, became the biggest landowner in the state of Oregon, running tens of thousands of sheep on the same land as the sheep that produced your yarn. And your garment will be physical proof that, while increasingly challenging, it remains possible to live off the land today while practicing ethical, humane, and sustainable business practices.