Clara Parkes is something of a guru in the knitting/crochet world. I have several of her extremely comprehensive books about yarn. When I say comprehensive, I mean it. Everything you could ever want to know about yarn or socks or processing wool, see Clara.
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool is a small book (under 200 pages) and is eye-opening in quite a few ways. A lot of what I've learned about wool, I've learned from Clara and from experience. I have about 12 years of knitting under my belt and, while I have a better idea of what yarn is good for a project vs what really isn't, I still have much to learn.
A few years ago, I sponsored an alpaca from Montrose farms in Indiana and got the fleece. I had every intention of doing the entire yarn-making process myself....until I saw the 7lbs of fleece and just got stuck. I ended up sending it to a mill and receiving some beautiful skeins of yarn in return. What I missed out on was, well, the entire process. I ended up getting one pound of alpaca fleece to try it myself. Here's to not getting overwhelmed!
In Vanishing Fleece, Clara is the lucky recipient of a bale of fine wool (no, it wasn't a gift). This is about 400-600 POUNDS of wool. And I thought my 7 pounds of fleece was overwhelming. She decided to crowdfund finances (with gifts) to take this bale of wool from start to finish. She was able to visit the places in America who still scour, spin, and dye wool, as well as the farm with the sheep, where it all starts. Lucky her, right? And lucky us, because, though this is a small book, it's packed with her experiences and details every step of the way.
America is falling behind in wool producing. Small farms do their part, but places to process the wool are so very far and few between that it often costs more to ship wool somewhere for processing than the return on the wool itself. Wool starts off being scoured. Cleaned of all the bits of debris and other matter so that it can move into spinning. The Bollman Hat Company in Texas is one of the only wool scouring places in the US. Clara meets up with Ladd Hughes to get a tour of the facility and to see her bale in it's cleaned up glory.
She divvies the bale up and sends them off to different mills to be spun into yarn. Kraemer Textiles, S&D Spinning Mill, Bartlett Mill and Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill each invited Clara in to watch her wool get to the next step. After that, obviously, the yarn needs color! A Verb for Keeping Warm tackles natural dyes (the Indigo process was fascinating). Since the wool spun up not quite as planned, Clara went to Spirit Trail Fiberworks to dye another batch. Jennifer Heverly, the owner and operator of Spirit Trail, has a unique way of handling the yarn and getting brilliant colors. Again, another fascinating process. The Quince and Co dyehouse is one of the final, more scientific, stops in the dye process.
I guess I'm geeky enough to have enjoyed the entire trip. If only there was a way to make this stuff my career. Hmmm.
I think it's always good to understand where the products you use, be it yarn or every day items, come from. How they are made and who they help. I sincerely hope there is a way to boost the wool producing business in the US, but with so many big companies taking their work overseas for cheap labor over quality, this is where we are.
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