Why “Closing the Gap”? and why SONIK WOVEMBER?

I hope you won’t mind a personal post here from me, Felicity, one of the members of TEAM WOVEMBER! I wanted to explain a little bit why I chose “Closing the Gap” as the theme for this year’s month-long celebration of WOOL and why there will be a SONIK dimension to this years’ WOVEMBER festivities.… Continue Reading Why “Closing the Gap”? and why SONIK WOVEMBER?

Recommended Reading

This Wovember, we highly recommend the following books: 1) The Woolpack by Cynthia Harnett is a wonderful piece of historic fiction. Although aimed principally at younger readers, this adventure story is well-researched and really brings the history of the wool trade in the Cotswolds alive through vivid and careful description. A really nice bedtime story… Continue Reading Recommended Reading

Announcing SONIK WOVEMBER

To people who follow Felicity Ford’s blog, it will come as no surprise that this year’s “Closing the Gap” theme for Wovember will feature a SONIK dimension! To introduce this SONIK element, we shall commence with a fun sheep sound factoid! Did you know that the sounds of sheep being herded are some of the… Continue Reading Announcing SONIK WOVEMBER

Sheep photos in Wovember

Judging the Wovember competition photographs has taken a short while because in deciding which photos should win, several factors emerged. We realised that because WOVEMBER is essentially a campaign site, the winning entries should somehow make WOOL accessible and exciting for new audiences; to speak somehow of the virtues of WOOL in a way which… Continue Reading Sheep photos in Wovember

An end of Wovember story

When I was at Art College, we were set a year-long-project in which our task was to trace the whole of Art History through a single topic. We were to collect images from all eras of the history of Western Art relating to a single theme, and to then organise these into a timeline. The… Continue Reading An end of Wovember story

Wool Is . . . a guest post from Ooey Ollie

Today we feel incredibly honoured to feature Oliver Henry on the Wovember blog. Known to Shetland friends and locals as “Ooey Ollie” (ooey = woolly), Oliver has been sorting and grading wool at Jamieson and Smith for almost 45 years. In so many respects, Oliver really is the Shetland Woolbrokers, and what he doesn’t know… Continue Reading Wool Is . . . a guest post from Ooey Ollie

Woolsack and Sue Blacker

One of the companies which I admire very much for its work with British Wool is The Natural Fibre Company, a specialist wool mill at Launceston on the Devon-Cornwall border where wool growers can pay to have their fleeces spun into yarns. As well as offering this service to wool growers, The Natural Fibre Company… Continue Reading Woolsack and Sue Blacker

Excelana – from sheep to skein

For this evening’s post we shall get an insight into what happens when you mix an understanding of the specific properties of different sheep breeds’ wool with a creative vision for knitwear and garment design. Because that sentence is a bit of a mouthful, I have condensed it into a handy Wovember equation: Sheep Fleece… Continue Reading Excelana – from sheep to skein

An Snag Breac

Following the Prick Your Finger post, we thought it would be interesting to feature work by artists and makers who use WOOL in their practice. It is hoped that this series exploring imaginative uses of WOOL will shed more light on what WOOL means. Today I want to introduce you to Irish artist Caroline Walshe,… Continue Reading An Snag Breac

The Sheep Yoke

This evening’s sheep-related tale comes from Richard Martin at Filkin’s Mill in the Cotswolds. According to Alan Butler*, “the name Cotswold is a combination of ‘Cot’ from the cots or enclosures where the sheep were kept, and ‘wolds’, which is a descriptive word for open, hilly ground.” In Filkin’s Mill, Richard has collected a vast… Continue Reading The Sheep Yoke