Overside wool launch

By Lulu Stader.

Since learning to spin on my pal’s spinning wheel a couple of years ago, I have been enjoying a project dear to my heart: I moved into the area about 25 years ago and have been admiring the sheep grazing along the roadsides and in the apportionment outside my garden.

There sadly seems to be not much market for their wool at the moment. My friends and neighbours were so helpful and forthcoming, however, when I started asking for fleeces around shearing time last year. Word of mouth meant even more fleeces, and I soon had a garage full of lovely fresh and very local wool: breeds ranging from White and Black North Country Cheviot, BFL mixes, Scottish Blackface and Zwartbles, to Shetland and Shetland mixes. All came from just up the road.

I didn't know what to expect and had not much experience with raw wool, so this was quite an ambitious task for a newbie spinner. 

I spent the first year enjoying myself pulling samples from each bag, carding/combing, mixing and spinning some of each kinds of wool, mostly in the grease, just at my house in the evenings, observing hygiene rules as recommended by the Highland Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers (HGWSD).

I gently washed the skeins as I went along and knitted simple crofters' hats from a free online pattern, mainly for the owners of the sheep who had so kindly provided the fleeces. Despite not having been shorn to spin, the wool turns out to be mostly quite clean with very little vegetable matter and not a whole lot of ‘second cuts’.

I have been sorting much of the wool now, storing the lovely soft and clean bits in hessian bags and old pillowcases, and using any fleece not suitable for spinning as mulch and for compost in the garden. The shearling hogg wool seems to be the softest. Treating the wool gently, spinning with minimal twist and 2-plying, then washing carefully without much use of harsh chemicals, also seems to leave the wool much softer than I had expected. It turns out perfectly suitable for knitting garments, if not quite (but almost!) next-to-the-skin soft.

Although I would love for local wool to fetch a decent price (and I do make a nominal donation towards the cost of shearing, I hasten to add), my crofter friends and neighbours seemed mainly keen to give me their wool just to see some of it being put to good use. So until someone else pays decently for the wool’s worth, I am wondering if there might be an appetite among crafters local to the Highlands, for using the lovely local wool to spin & knit/ weave and sell the produce to benefit the local community? 

In the meantime, I’ve been spinning a lot of yarn with local wool. Some of it will be for sale in the run up to Christmas, as skeins; knitted into Crofter’s or Sailor’s hats; and as knit-your-own-hat kits. All earnings will be going to local charities. I loved what Julia Alexander did with the second-hand clothes shop as well: choosing to give the earnings to local charities in turn.

We’ll start with the Highland Hospice and see how it goes. If there is lots of interest, in time we might be able to expand, maybe making and selling a wider range of products, and/or pay local crofters for wool and crafters for processing it. Having not researched this very deeply, there are a few woollen mills in the Highlands (e.g. https://northronaldsayyarn.co.uk/) and we may be able to have the wool part-processed by a mill.

There might even be an opportunity in time to 'save & shave' rare breeds of sheep locally (like the Livestock Conservancy initiative in the USA, ‘Shave 'em to Save 'em’). It would be wonderful to see the local wool appreciated and loved again. I hope that this wee project might be a step in that direction.

‘Overside Wool’ yarn, hat-knitting kits and ‘Crofter’s hats’ will be available through the Gairloch Museum and the GALE Centre in the run-up to Christmas initially (please contact them directly for purchases). We’ll see if there is enough interest to try to re-stock for Easter and then take it from there.

Donations of pre-loved knitting needles (especially sizes 3.5—4; UK size 8—10, traditional straight, sets of 5, or circular) are most welcome. If you are a crafter and want to join in and help us spin, knit or crochet artisan yarn from local wool to sell for the benefit of local charities, please contact Lulu on oversidewool@gmail.com.

This article was originally published in issue 23 of the Gairloch and District Times. Become a digital subscriber to get each issue sent to you directly.