Louise Fairburn on Working with Wool…

Building on from this morning’s Q&A with Sue Blacker about designing with breed-specific yarns for her book, Pure Wool and the afternoon’s tantalising glimpses of Kate Davies’ superb colour-knitting designs created with Shetland wool, this evening we shall be learning about the specific features of designing with another distinctive breed – the Lincoln Longwool. Louise… Continue Reading Louise Fairburn on Working with Wool…

Growing Wool in pictures by Louise Fairburn

WOVEMBER readers may remember this prize-winning photo, taken by Helena Callum last WOVEMBER? In writing about the sheep photos submitted last year, TEAM WOVEMBER were uncertain about what type of sheep this was, but luckily Louise Fairburn – shepherd to the Risby Longwool Flock – recognised the photo in Helena’s photo as one of her… Continue Reading Growing Wool in pictures by Louise Fairburn

Small Producers Previously featured on WOVEMBER

One of our readers kindly suggested that Wovember should give exposure to independent wool growers & their wares. This is something on which we have definitely focused on previous years, but in all the information residing here, perhaps the relevant articles are not terrible easy to find! We have added a SEARCH form to the… Continue Reading Small Producers Previously featured on WOVEMBER

Shepherds on Wearing Wool…

As you know, our theme this year for WOVEMBER has been ‘Closing the Gap’. We wanted to do this because we believe it is wrong that textiles derived from oil are allowed to appropriate the pleasant associations of WOOL for their marketing strategies. We also feel that the more information there is in the public… Continue Reading Shepherds on Wearing Wool…

Wearing Wool

We are into the last 5 days of WOVEMBER! This means we are into the last topic of our five phases of WOVEMBER blogposts – ‘Growing Wool’, ‘Harvesting Wool’, ‘Processing Wool’, ‘Working with Wool’ and ‘Wearing Wool’. I hope it is by now clear why we chose this structure for organising all the pieces this… Continue Reading Wearing Wool

WOVEMBER WORDS #25

Working with wool, especially breed-specific wool, gives you an incredible choice in each breed’s specific properties and qualities, as Ethel Mairet explains: Every raw material has its own definite expression, its biotechnic quality. This can even be found in the various types of fleece. Each kind of fleece has its own perfect expression – the… Continue Reading WOVEMBER WORDS #25