Rare Wools and related thoughts
I’ve never owned sheep. Frankly, until a couple of years ago, I never considered that a remote possibility, although I’ve always appreciated their position in the scheme of things. Good meat. Good wool for my beloved wool pants and sweaters. Beautiful, cute, entertaining lambs in the spring, and an occasional rare or unusual breed to decorate the roadside pastures and give us travelers something to talk about besides how much further it is to the next rest stop.
Then I learned to spin.
Now, sheep aren’t big or little, white, brown, or mixed.
They’re not one of a dozen common breeds, high or low producers, or
rare curiosities. The wool isn’t
simply coarse or soft. There
are a hundred degrees of variation now -- fine,
sophisticated differences to intrigue and delight.
And with this newfound awareness comes a deeper understanding of just how
valuable a resource the world’s many heritage breeds are – and how easily
one can be lost because its unique traits aren’t suited to the methods or
machinery of mass production. The
loss becomes personal as I contemplate the fact that I might never have the
opportunity to sample that fiber, to test it’s strength and loft, to design a
garment around its unique properties.
I discovered, too, that a high percentage of the heritage
wool breeds of sheep still in existence are part of spinners’ flocks.
Who better to appreciate and make use of this valuable resource?
Who better to advertise it and teach others to appreciate and value these
sheep. It’s so logical, but
it’s something I hadn’t considered before because until then, it didn’t
affect my life, and I had enough to think about already.
I suspect, too, that there are a lot of people out there like me who
probably would care a lot more about the survival of heritage breeds if they
were given a personal reason to care.
As individuals, as fanciers of various breeds, we can lead those around us to understand and care about and support our efforts. It’s simply a matter of education. We need to learn to market ourselves and our breeds, to promote what makes them unique – the hardiness of the Cotswold, coupled with the unbelievably strong yarn that can be spun from its wool; the novelty of the multi-horned Jacob sheep and its interesting wool; the double-coated Icelandic
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