Piiku, piiku, piiku, piikuuu…!! huudeltiin ennen lampaita kotiin laThe name Piiku is derived from an old sheep calling, when you went out to the pasture and called to the sheep “Piiku, piiku, piiku, piiku!” to bring the flock home. Piiku is a family run company that combines tradition and innovation – we want to promote our very own landrace, the Finnsheep, by producing first class wool products in delicious colours to meet the demand of a modern day customer.
Finnsheep have been raised in the family for decades. The commercial sales of our own produced wool started in 1984, and at first there was only one product, grey knitting wool. Slowly but steadily the range of products has grown, and now, Piiku is mostly known for its rich, vivid colours and exquisite wool for felting. At the moment, we offer a variety of curly wools, carded fleece, needlepunch, roving, 2-ply yarn and felt pieces we call pebbles – all this in amazing range of colours and produced right at home, on our farm in Central Finland.
Production
Our sheep are well taken care of all the way from the day they are born. They graze most of the year on the lakeside pastures of Piesala farm, while some of them find a summer job gardening meadows around the town of Jyväskylä.
The sheep are sheared twice a year – in spring before they head out to the pastures, and in autumn. After shearing the wool is washed. At this point a part of the wool is only dried and then carded, to get the natural colours. The rest is dyed in our own dyeing workshop. An endless inspiration for Piiku’s flamboyant colours is our beautiful Finnish nature, its morning dusk over lakes and rivers, majestic forests, autumn leaves and fields waiting for harvest. Because we dye all our wool by ourselves, we have a possibility to easily try out new colours, and also, to provide customers specifically customised colours.
After dyeing, the wool is carded, which also takes place on the farm. For carding we use an old carding machine from a wool mill in the neighbouring town. The area used to be a centre for Finnish wool and felt production, and in its own way, Piiku is maintaining this disappearing tradition and craftsmanship. Carding is a phase where miracles happen – you work with a heavy machine of steel and iron and get out wonderful soft carded fleece.
Piesala farm
Piesala farm is one of the oldest farms in Petäjävesi region, and it has run in the same family for several centuries. The breeding lines of Piesala farm’s sheep can traced back to the 1960’s. Since then the goal has been to breed sheep with good wool and meat producing qualities. Today, we put even more emphasis on the quality of wool, as well as paying attention on the lambs growth.
Our herd consists of Finnsheep in all its natural colours: white, brown and black.
