WELCOME TO WOVEMBER 2013

As in previous years of WOVEMBER, the team are concocting a wooltastic month for you. There shall be content throughout the month celebrating WOOL and the journey it makes from sheep to shoulders, through a 5-part series of themed posts divided across ‘Growing Wool’, ‘Harvesting Wool’, ‘Processing Wool’, ‘Working with Wool’ and ‘Wearing Wool’.

Wovember 2013 Competition

There is also (as in previous years…) a photo competition, to which you are very warmly invited to send your photos celebrating WOOL. We have already received some superb sheepy entries for this.

‘Navajo-Churro sheep. Mineral County, Colorado’ – Jane Nearing

‘Here at Fabric of the Field……. we grow wool with comfort in mind!’ – Clare Gardiner

Wovember Brooches

This year WOVEMBER BROOCHES will be available from a number of selected comrades in the wool industry, with a very small quantity appearing on Etsy later in the month and also online at laurasloom.co.uk; the online appearance of brooches covered in 100% WOOL will be announced here.

The WOVEMBER VENDORS have all been featured on the WOVEMBER blog in the past, and the fact that they are selling brooches from bricks and mortar shops means that you can combine obtaining your brooches with visiting some of the most inspiring woolly destinations in the UK. You could, for instance, visit the Woolclip in Cumbria, where Jean and Cecilia have built a very woolly WOVEMBER display. Thanks Cecilia and Jean!

In the Woolclip you can buy woollen goods made by the Woolclip members – many of whom are shepherds as well as craftswomen – and there is a beautiful array of knitted, woven, felted, spun, dyed and crocheted wonder to be found.

Other WOVEMBER BROOCH vendors include Prick Your Finger in Bethnal Green, where there will be a small selection of brooches from next Friday onwards. As discussed on the WOVEMBER blog in 2011, Prick Your Finger is London’s Number 1 Haberdashery for woolly goodness. Where else can you find yarn-on-the-bone and Rough Fell signage?

Farfield Mill is where Laura Rosenzweig (whom many of you may remember from last year’s WOVEMBER celebrations) sells her beautiful woven textiles, and also does some of her weaving. Farfield Mill is a restored Victorian woollen mill on the edge of Cumbria and Yorkshire, and with its array of working looms and talented artisans, surely a No. 1 destination for WOVEMBERISTS in search of a good woolly day out in the North of England? Laura sells the most beautiful textiles made from locally sourced Bluefaced Leicester fleeces, and you can read the whole story of how she is doing this on her amazing website. You could visit the mill, see the looms and pick up a WOVEMBER BROOCH as part of the same day out.

In other news on the WOVEMBER BROOCHES front, we are delighted that Blacker Yarns will be including a WOVEMBER BROOCH with every order posted in November, free of charge. We think this is a wonderful way for knitters to get a woolly accessory to go with their hand-knitting projects, and for Blacker Yarns to help spread news of WOVEMBER to the wool-buying public. THANK YOU, SUE BLACKER!

Sue Blacker with her sheep, photo © Douglas Bence

The WOVEMBER WAL

Explained by Tom in the WOVEMBER WORDS post earlier today, this is an official WOOL-ALONG and you can join in with any 100% WOOL craft project. You can find other WAL-ers in the WOVEMBER Ravelry Group.

Publicising WOVEMBER

Several people have contacted us here at WOVEMBER requesting publicity materials to help them promote 100% WOOL to the public. Your wish is our command, and you can now download and print WOVEMBER posters for the cause of helping to celebrate WHAT WOOL IS. The documents are shown below, with their download links. If you use the posters in your shop/school/studio etc. as part of a wool-themed display, we would love to see a picture.

[scribd id=179903485 key=key-ijy0107vrysyf3t4kj1 mode=scroll]

[scribd id=179903297 key=key-79c3f25c1z279zzfcc8 mode=scroll]

[scribd id=180751685 key=key-1p4n3aearzot0phxvoey mode=scroll]

Finally, WOVEMBER is now also on Twitter.

The Wovember Petition

At last count, the WOVEMBER petition had 731 signatures; if you have not already signed it, please feel free to do so now: let’s continue to campaign for greater awareness about what wool is, where it comes from, and what it most definitely ISN’T.

That is all for now from TEAM WOVEMBER, we shall see you tomorrow for the beginning of A VERY WOOLLY WOVEMBER XXX