Further Reading | Wovember

It’s Wovember. A month of celebrating all things 100% wool.

As knitters we know what the fibre content our projects have. We buy yarn for the very reason of its fibre content. There are always new debates, like in many of the craft industries, about delving deeper into the ethics of the products we use, like in this recent article about the dangers of the overproduction of cashmere. However, as a community, knitters are a savy and responsible bunch proud of using natural fibres, which is why when wandering the high street shops it gets our goat that garments with extremely little wool content are advertised as being ‘wool’. It’s false advertising and as a country with such a traditional history of wool production we shouldn’t be standing for knock offs being touted as the real thing.

Wovember is a “celebration of wool and a campaign for clear labelling and descriptions of garments”.  The website is treasure trove of ideas and inspiration written by an array of knowledgeable contributors, all aiming to rejoice in all things wool. Want to know how to extract the lanolin from a raw sheep fleece? They have a recipe for that. Curious to know more about British breed wool?  Louise Scollay wrote a great run down of some of the different characteristics specific British breeds will bring to your projects. They also have a photo competition going on, check out all the woolly entries so far!

Here at YAK we are just as passionate about wool and have plenty of 100% wool yarn on offer if you want to join the team Wovemeber in their 100% wool mission. Please let us know if you are joining in with a wool-tastic November or if you have a favourite British breed we should know about!