on Today we are thrilled to have a Wovember Words post from Diane Falck AKA The Spinning Shepherd. Long term Wovemberists will remember Diane from Wovembers past, for which she has provided many fantastic articles and photos of her Ouessant sheep. In this article, representing France in our European tour of sheep and wool, she tells… Continue Reading The Ouessant sheep of France
on Continuing our EU tour, today we are in Finland exploring the fleece of the Finnsheep. In Finland the word for sheep is lammas and the word for wool is villa – the proximity of these words to the words explored yesterday from Estonia perhaps points to the closeness of these two countries facing one another… Continue Reading The Finnsheep of Finland
on This evening we’re thrilled to bring you a post by John Arbon who runs a wool mill in North Devon. As well as producing textile products – socks, fibres, hand-knitting yarns – John Arbon creates custom spun yarns for customers like Rachel Atkinson with her wondrous Daughter of a Shepherd Yarn. He’s also developed textile… Continue Reading Wool Labelling: Deciphering EU Legislation
on For Wovember Words today we are in Estonia! When team Wovember member Felix traveled there in 2012 for a residency, she discovered the wondrous organisation Hea Villa Selts (Facebook link) which translates loosely as The Good Wool Society. This is a coalition of shepherds and wool-workers working to understand and teach the best ways to… Continue Reading Estonian Native Sheep
on Last year we shared this Wovember Words post on the use of the term ‘Wool’ – which looks at EU labelling. The EU legislation on textile labelling regulations was updated in April 2016 (and the link at the bottom now points to the updated version) but the terms referred to here are still as unchanged. How do… Continue Reading From The Wovember Archives – EU Labelling
on Today on our EU tour of sheep and wool, we are quoting from Richard Regnery’s book, Ruminations of a Grumpy Shepherd. Richard and Gretchen Regnery have been raising a flock of white and coloured Corriedale sheep in Door County in northeast Wisconsin for over twenty years, and this book recounts some of their experiences along… Continue Reading Sheep and Wool in Denmark, with Richard Regnery
on As we mentioned in this post Wovember is once again hosting an annual photo contest on instagram. All you have to do to enter is use the hashtag #Wovember2016 on any images which show the ways in which you are appreciating and celebrating sheep and wool this Wovember. You can see some of the diverse… Continue Reading Week one of the #Wovember2016 instagram photo competition…
on For today’s stop on the EU sheep breed tour, we’re in the Czech Republic. We found some of our links for this piece via the cesky a slovensky Ravelry group, and others through extensive use of Google translate services, through which we learned that the Czech word for wool is vlna, and the Czech word… Continue Reading Wool in the Czech Republic
on Κύπρος αγρινό πρόβατα, pronounced Kýpros agrinó próvata, is a strain of mouflon sheep particular to Cyprus. It is worth knowing about this sheep and its mouflon cousins, as these are the precursors to all our modern domesticated breeds. Unlike domesticated sheep, wild mouflon have a hide rather than wool, and do not require shearing. However,… Continue Reading The Cyprus Mouflon: Κύπρος αγρινό πρόβατα
on Starting tomorrow, this weekend in London sees Yarn in the City hosting their Yarnporium. The tutor and vendor lists for this event include many designers and small businesses whose work maximises the potential of wool. Every year we are approached by small businesses doing really special things with wool and looking for ways to more… Continue Reading Connecting wool work with Wovember, featuring Yarn in the City