Lisle cotton yarn – the history
Lisle cotton yarn is made with the best Egyptian Makò cotton, and treated with a double mercerising process.
It was created close to the Scottish Lowlands in a company named Coats. Since the second half of the 1800’s this thread was widely recognised as the best quality thread produced by Coats. Its original name was “Scottish crochet thread”.
(Lowlands)
The origins of Lisle cotton yarn
Makò cotton comes from Northern Egypt, it is a long stape cotton, in fact, the length of the stape is between 30 and 34 mm. Due to its charateristics, it is used to produce the highest quality cotton thread. The name Makò comes from the area in Egypt where it is grown (see picture). It was discovered around the 1820 by a Frenchman named Louis Alexis Jumel in the Egyptian governor’s Mello Bey garden, here there were plants which the governor had imported from Ethiopia and in a short time it was commercialised and used Worldwide.
The boll has a charateristic light pink colour and the stape length is around 31 to 38 mm, furthermore the fineness of the fiber is around 12 to 14 micron. There are different qualities of long stape Makò: Giza 86, Giza 89 and Giza 90. Even more, there are other luxurious varieties which have a superior fiber length (extra long stape) where the fibers are longer than 33 mm. Above all, in this type of cotton, there are some that are exceptional, for example Giza 45, Giza 70, Giza87 and Giza 88. Most noteworthy is Giza 45, it has a very soft, silky hand and is used to produce the best quality thread.
(Giza 45)
Some of our products made in Lisle cotton yarn
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