on Sue Blacker joins WOVEMBER again for part 2 of her series on designing yarns from a mill’s perspective; if you didn’t catch part 1 you can find it here. Blacker Yarns yarn design: imagining the possible (and viable!) Why would we want to make a particular yarn? For Blacker Yarns we do have many options:… Continue Reading Designing a Yarn, Part 2
on After hearing from Sally yesterday about the work that goes into producing wool at the breeding and farming stage, we thought it would be nice to move along the chain to learn how that wool is then turned into a yarn. Sue Blacker of Blacker Yarns and the Natural Fibre Company joins us to talk… Continue Reading Designing a Yarn, Part 1
on Continuing from the wool care posts we did last week, this evening we are joined by Freyalyn who is the amazing force of life and WOOL behind Freyalyn’s Fibres, who shares her method for washing raw fleece. How *I* wash a fleece. There are as many ways to wash a fleece as there are breeds… Continue Reading Washing Fleece with Freyalyn
on Here at WOVEMBER we have already looked at some of the actions and words which have historically been associated with shepherding. Here we have another action associated with wool working, which has it’s own unique method and measure. The ends of a length of newly woven cloth are sewn together to make a circle, and… Continue Reading Wovember Words: Waulking
on ‘The Wool Shed, Jamieson and Smith Woolbrokers, Lerwick, Shetland. These are the hands of the managing director, Oliver Henry, or as he is more commonly known – The Wool Man. Oliver’s talks about sorting and grading fleece are one of the highlights of Shetland Wool Week.’ – Jeni Reid
on Yesterday Kate Graham talked about the successful sheep sponsorship scheme she ran this year. Having read the sponsorship thread on the Shankend Farming group on Ravelry and seen the sponsors excitedly chatting about their sheep and fleeces Louise asked for some of the fleece fosterers to talk to WOVEMBER about their experiences of the scheme.… Continue Reading Sponsors of Shankend Sheep
on In the second of this week’s WOVEMBER posts featuring Kate Graham and her farm at Shankend, Louise finds out more about the sponsorship scheme Kate runs. Earlier this year I had read an article about Ralph Lauren buying yarn from a farm in Oregon to clad the entire USA team for the Winter Olympics in… Continue Reading Shankend Sheep Sponsorship
on We shared this photo by Jeni Reid here a few days ago. This beautiful coloured fleece was discarded with only the white ones from the clip being sent on to the Wool Marketing Board. Many of you commented that you would have found a use for the fleece and that this lovely wool really shouldn’t… Continue Reading Nature's Natural Colours
on When I was small I was fascinated by a packaged cake of soap in a friend’s loo. I went home to say that next door that had soap made from “fat wool”. Wool fat soap is actually lanolin, the natural wax (not fat) in sheep’s wool, which waterproofs our woolly friends and provides anti-fungal protection.… Continue Reading Wovember Words: Wool fat 'recipe'
on Chrissie Day is a textile artist who runs Teesdale Fibres. She has made it her mission to source local wool and her pedigree Teeswater and BFL yarns have been dyed by Yarn Garden , proving hugely popular at the wool shows this year. As well as finding time to run her wool production she is… Continue Reading British from Fleece to Finish