on At the Highland Wool Festival, in May, I was really lucky to have met Louise and George, who are Yarn Garden. Yarn Garden have been dyeing yarn for over a year now and you might have seen them at yarn events or wool shows with their lovely greenhouse-come-potting shed full of seedling trays of delightful yarn.… Continue Reading Wovember words: Dyed in the wool passion
on Continuing yesterday’s theme on tracing garment production from sheep to shawl or – as Sally put it – from back to back, I wanted to share an article I wrote several years ago about Julia Desch. I met Julia when I stayed on her farm and encountered her beautiful flock and The Wool Room. Julia… Continue Reading From sheep to shawl at Beech Hill Farm
on ‘This is my Sockhead hat, you can find the pattern for free on Ravelry, I highly recommend it. I love the pea green yarn which was a gift from a Swedish friend.’ – Jeni Reid
on This evening we will learn about a flock of coloured Wensleydale sheep which I met in 2007 and their shepherd, Julia Desch. Here is K.G. Ponting reflecting in his amazing tome – The Wool Trade – on the qualities of this particular breed: Another English long woolled sheep is the Wensleydale which takes its name… Continue Reading Wovember Words: On Wensleydales
on We promised the other day when we showed you this lovely photo of Sally Antill taken by Jeni Reid that we would share some posts written by her during Wovember. Sally Antill and her other half – Michael Baxter – are breeding Soft Fell sheep. The idea is to produce a meat carcass acceptable to… Continue Reading Sally Antill: Soft Fell sheep and their fleece #1
on One key aim for the KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook by TEAM WOVEMBER Member, Felicity Ford AKA Felix, was to find a way of upping the wool-content of fruitcake. A 100% wool stranded colourwork swatch worked in Shetland Wool was the result of many months of baking cakes and then knitting them, and the fruits of… Continue Reading Fruitcake from Felix
on The distinctive voice of Elizabeth Zimmerman has featured in Wovember Words several times previously. Today we are sharing extracts from her notes on knitting a Pi Shawl. A round shawl, in fine wool, on a circular needle, is my invariable companion when space is limited, waiting-around probable, and events uncertain. First of all, fine wool… Continue Reading Wovember Words: Fine wool takes up little space
on One of the key themes of Wovember is closing the gap between producers and consumers of wool. There are many ways to do this as an individual; you can explore the provenance of wool in yarns you knit with or clothes you wear by learning about where and how they are produced, and you can… Continue Reading Hug a Sheep Day
on ‘Deb Robson is never happier than when she is face to face with a flock of sheep. Deb is the co-author of The Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook. These particular sheep are a Swiss breed called Valais Blacknose. They are rom a flock near Tomintoul in the a Scottish Highlands.’ – Jeni Reid
on This song appears in a collection of Island and Highland tunes compiled by composer Hugh Robertson, in the 1950s. I had heard it referred to before as the Shetland Spinning Song, but that is quite incorrect as it features the kind of beautiful non-lexical vocables (think to Hickory-dickory-dock) which are present in Gaelic purit a… Continue Reading Wovember Words: Island Spinning Song