Wearing Wool

‘Needle-felted brooch’ – Jenni Byers

‘My screens have wool images that I print onto bags and t-shirts for the ‘wearing of wool’’ – Jenni Byers

‘Another cheeky photo for your collection’ – Jenni Byers

‘My rather elderly teddy bear wearing a kolpak. Wool is mainly used for felted artifacts in Kyrgyzstan. A nomadic people, the Kyrgyz made felt blankets, mats and wall hangings to keep the interiors of their portable tent homes warm and attractive. The traditional white felted men’s hats (kolpak), women’s more colourful hats and slippers with Asiatic toes curled upwards all are now traditional souvenirs’ – Samantha Payn

‘I love my bed socks and end up wearing them around the house, as you can tell by the not very elegant darning. (In fact I see a hole in the original blue darning that now needs to be darned!) All wool, of course! I love wool – and I love the idea of celebrating it for a whole month’. – Clare Thomas

‘Jester is one of our oldest Jacobs and a personal favorite. The sweater is homegrown, handspun and handknit out of Jester’s wool. Well, except for the last two inches up around the neck where I ran out of his white and had to splice in a little bit of one of his adopted family, Annabelly.’ – Sara Dunham

‘The pictures show me wearing my Gansey for Derbyshire, a culmination of 4.5 miles of spinning, designing, dyeing and knitting up the wonderful Derbyshire Gritstone fleece. Photographed by my daughter, on the moor where they run’. – Kate Greatorex

‘Here’s my Coopworth sheep shorn, washed, carded, dyed, spun and knit to wear anywhere. The first soak in a big rubber outside tub, PG hand carder, natural dyes and my sweet spinning wheel all contribute here’. – Janis Reuter

Working with Wool

‘This photo is of two of my children playing in the wool loft insulation we used when renovating our house – so this is for the “working with wool” category! I was working with the wool!’ – Jakki Stewart

‘This is how my cat Ukkie prevents me from working with wool; she looks so happy sleeping on my wip, I can’t take it away from her, so have to work on something else instead’ – Anja Vos.

‘Here’s an image of one of my wool pictures. It is needlefelted using a mixture of British and Estonian wools onto a felted wool background’ – Katrin Eagle

‘I quickly sat the basket of her wool down and knew she’d sniff it’ – Sara Dunham

‘After all the many years I have been knitting all I can say is there is something added to the whole experience when you know exactly where your yarn came from’ – Chrissie Day

‘We went to look at the sheep living up to their name, being undoubtedly black, Welsh and living in the mountains. It’s so good to see something which is so perfectly in its place’ – Kate Woolwinding

‘Knitting. A simple wool shawl, my own design. Tortoise and Hare Gauntlets, designed by Kate Davies’ – Joanne Elizabeth

‘Took bags of Artesano super chunky alpaca/wool to Turkey & knitted every day at the ‘beach’ club (no sand). Got weird looks but enjoyed the uninterrupted time to knit!’ – Sue Scarre

‘I wanted to make a replica of my Soay sheep in miniature. So I started with a piece of woven WOOL fabric for the body, stuffed it with WOOL fleece, then needle punched washed fleece from my sheep onto the WOOLEN body. The horns are fashioned from WOOL felt. Pictures aren’t the best, but if one compares it to the real thing, I think it is a pretty fair representation. Pictures of my sheep were submitted to “growing wool”. Thanks so much for Wovember!’ – Denise Floyd

‘Working with Wool’ – Amber Weinburg

Processing Wool

‘HAD to throw in a pic of my custom designed and made wheel’ – Janis Reuter

‘Obviously not a competition entry, but one of my favourite photos from my outing to The Natural Fibre Company! This shows combed Falkland Merino going into a gilling machine, where it will be combed even more, before being bi-coiled and then worsted spun’ – Felicity Ford, TEAM WOVEMBER

Harvesting Wool

‘Shearing Shetland sheep, February 2012, Outside of Lexington, KY at Square Peg Farm’ – Laura, The Unique Sheep

‘No idea which breed of sheep did this but I have seen it being done by my friends’ Wiltshire Horn sheep who don’t get shorn and shed their wool naturally by rubbing on the fences. This photo was taken in Cumbria’. – Linda Scurr

Growing Wool

‘Urban Sheep; bringing wool growing closer the the people’ and ‘Urban Sheep: Bringing wool production even closer to home’ – Frances Willmott

‘Growing wool is important for mankind since ancient times. This is an example from the middle ages.
Picture was taken in Rouen, in France. It’s a scuplture under an arch in the middle of the town’ – Anja Vos

‘Come on ewe at the back, close the gap’ and ‘Not sure if this is growing wool or wearing wool. Sheep called Claerwen; ¾ Wensleydale, ¼ mule’ – Linda Scurr

‘A picture I took last week of sheep in Kyrgyzstan, one of the new states which appeared after the fragmentation of the Soviet Union. The minute you are outside Bishkek, the capital city, you are immersed in the rural way of life. Flocks of sheep graze the roadsides, cattle (every family tries to have a cow of their own) mooch, and herds of horses roam freely – no fields contain the livestock. The horse is the standard means of transport outside of town, but it is the sheep and wool you want to know about, I’m sure. The sheep were not noticeably smaller than your average British sheep, and certainly bigger than the Hebridean sheep that I have seen’ – Samantha Payn

‘A Shetland who’s escaped ‘the roo’! Cunister, Yell, June 2012′ – Ros Steven

‘I spent most of the day over at Kathy’s again. Several of Blossom’s aunties (and uncles) were there so I took advantage of being able to take lamb pictures most of the day. Of course many of the pictures were of darling Baba’. – Sara Dunham, images originally published here

‘I call this photo I took of my fawn gulmoget Shetland ewe Boulderneigh Bramble “Textures.”‘ – Michelle Mohr McMillen

‘My Soay sheep have a beautiful mouflon fleece. And first and last names, as they are family members. The ice chunks are from their pails that need to be replaced daily for fresh water in the winter’. – Denise Floyd

‘Do happy sheep make finer wool? Elizabeth thinks so. Shetland ewe, January 2012. Square Peg Farm outside of Lexington, KY. Note the green hand knit lacey wool shawlette in the second photo.’ – Laura, The Unique Sheep

‘I am a weaver with a small flock of Shetland sheep in the Fingerlakes region of Central New York. For the past two summers, I have offered a “farm to yarn” camp for local kids to learn where woo comes from and how it is processed. We wash, card, dye, spin and weave during the course of the week. The kids favorite part of the whole week is my Shetland wether, George. He is such a smoosh; loves scritchies under his chin and full body massages! He comes bounding to the fence when the kids arrive, ready to provide a hands-on class lesson on lanolin, crimp, and micron counts! The kids call him a rock star, and he truly is!’ – Karen Pardee

‘This pet lamb was as strong as an ox’ – Kate Woolwinding

‘I enjoy living around sheep again. I like the noise of the lambs in the spring’ – Kate Woolwinding

‘I’m sending in three photos of sheep in Switzerland. The unusual looking breed is from the upper Valais, and has been making a comeback’. – Ericka Olsen Stefano

Wimpole Sheep, a rare breed, at Wimpole Hall National Trust – Kim Maya Sutton

Sheepdog is watching you! – Kim Maya Sutton