Please do talk about your favorite brands of wool
Ravelry
Rauma! RAUMA!! I ended up getting ‘paid’ for making a knitting friend a sweater with an entire hecking bag of Rauma, and I made three sweaters with it. (Con: it’s so rough I literally got rug burn on my tension hand 🤦🏻♀️) BUT PRO: it is so warm that when my projects were in my lap, I was sweating. These are my ‘oh fuck it’s -40° againnn’ sweaters. Another pro: it’s so durable that my freeze-baby 96lb husband has worn his Rauma sweater daily from Dec-March for the last 8 years and I’ve only had to redo the cuffs three times. Him, the ruiner-of-all-my-old-sports-shirts, destroyer-of-jackets, plague-upon-all-mittens, has kept this sweater in mostly good wear for that long. Ahhh. My goal is to eventually make the Knives Out sweater in Rauma.
Madelinetosh everything but especially ToshDK. I love their color ways but not all their bases are equal, and imo ToshDK holds up the best. You get the benefit of that glorious glossy sheen AND incredible durability for how wonderfully soft it is.
Hedgehog Fibers is my aaaaaabsolute favorite lace. It was heaven in my hands and on the needles.
(Now, would I sell a kidney for enough qiviut to make a slouchy sweater??? Absoheckingllutly.)
Also huge shout-out to Colourmart for making sweater-qualities of cashmere and silk available for UNDER $50, TOTAL. But man alive, their website gives me Bad Flashbacks and it sucks having to wait for that to get shipped from the UK.