eco friendly, loving yarn?

[Sage]

Hello all,

One of my great passions in life right now is knitting and crocheting, but I am having a very hard time finding yarn that is a natural fibre and lovingly processed. I found a few dead ends on the internet, including an awesome site that raised their own sheep, processed the wool and hand dyed everything, but they no longer sell wool.

If anyone has any information on this I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks,
Sage

[julie_bennion]

Hello Sage,
Today I spoke with a friend of a friend of a friend , Sam... who sends her sheep's wool to a local woman in no. california, for spinning at the mill. She then sells the yarn in its natural-fibre colours: dark brown, grayish brown & creamy white; 4oz.skeins are $24.00 with, she suggested, a discount for several skeins. Then I found a website that's all about how to make your own dyes: http://botanicalcolors.com/ And Sam recommended looking at this website: http://www.fibershed.com There I learned a tid~bit more about a whole bunch of farms & farmers who are growing natural fibers, loving their wool-producing animals, using natural plant dyes, et al. Wow. Makes me think about getting into knitting, like never before! From Fibershed, looking into some of the farms, shops & products, I found a page that speaks to what you're looking for, maybe?!
Here's the link: http://www.knitterly.net/collections/ya ... irl-petals
Then, looking further, shoot... I am not sure whether these animals are being sold for their meat, or not. Here's a bit more about this woman & her business, where you'll also see her contact info:
http://www.fibershed.com/producers/dire ... is-sarley/
I found another site, with mention of all things being organically produced and some words about older sheep (that sounds promising) whose wool, as they age, is of a different shade: http://www.vreseis.com/shop/bulky-woole ... ply-merino

If you'd like to consider buying skeins of wool from Sam, I'd be happy to help with that . She lives a lovely bike ride away from my place, and from there I can swing by the post office for shippage to you. Private message me if you'd like to send me on an errand.

'hope this helps!,
Julie

[Courtney]

Hey Sage and Julie,

Just thought I'd chime in here with a bit of info for consideration about wool. First off, here are some good links to understand the potential issues with wool and farming sheep:

http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used ... -industry/

In addition, Eloisa wrote an awesome blog about her and Pete's reflections on having a sheep farm and some of why they decided to move on from that:

https://discoverylearningcentre.org/2015/02/17/sheep/

What's important to keep in mind is that wool farming is a for-profit business. So in addition to the question of whether the farmers sell sheep eventually to slaughter for meat, which I'm unsure how common or uncommon that is (though since it's commonplace in the dairy and egg industries, it may be in the wool industry also), there are other issue of love too. As you can see in the link above, there are other potential concerns regarding how sheep are being sheared, mulesing, forced breeding, etc. And then with any farm animals there are questions like, if an animal gets injured, or sick when it gets old, does the farmer care for it as much as possible, in the same way we might care for our dog or cat we love that got sick or injured? A lot of the time, the animal is just killed in those cases because it's now not ideal for profit. Of course, in all the world's sheep farmers there is likely a massive variation in how farmers treat wool sheep and how loving their operations are, but these are just some of the issues to be aware of and research.

Broadly, in regards to all animals, Jesus has said it is unloving to use animals for any human purposes. And wool still requires animals to be sequestered, bred, and used for human purposes and human profit. And as is the case with any bred and farmed group of any farm animals, there are issues about environment impact in regards to how those animals use large amounts of water, create lots of waste, affect topsoil and the quality of local water supply, etc.

I don't know much about knitting but have many friends who do it, and from what I understand there are many vegan options for knitting that are not wool. And as a side note--warm clothing technology is exploding these days, so there's really no need to buy new wool clothing/coats etc. either.

Here are some links that came up when I googled "vegan knitting" and "wool alternative knitting":

http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=3816&catId=5

http://www.veganyarn.com/

Anyway hope that helps--happy knitting and crocheting!

Courtney

[Sage]

Hi Julie and Courtney,

Thank you both for your replies, I will look more into all of this. I usually like to use natural plant fibres like cotton and such, but those too have unloving practices associated with them. I now have a lot more to think and feel about as I pursue this passion. I appreciate all the links, and wonder why I didn't find them in my searches.

Thanks for the offer Julie, I am at the 'buy as needed' point which is a far cry from my previous 'buy as much as I can' point, so when the time comes when/if I'd like some wool, and it feels right I'll drop you a line.

thank you both again, I appreciate it
Sage

[julie_bennion]

Thanks so much, Courtney!
Soon after that bit of research I did, I bought some needles & a bit of recycled, thrift store yarn, both silk & wool. I then got excited & stopped by the local Yarn shop where, honestly, I forgot* about being morally principled & loving of sheep. Easily influenced at that point, the shop owner sold me on some new needles & a skein, so I could join a class, to knit a hat. It's already fallen apart, in the sense that I have lost enthusiasm for it all, realizing how much I gave up on following God's Way. Your post has inspired me to begin again.

*I just saw how the word "forgot", in this case, means ~ I was going for [for-got] what I could get. I was not feeling or thinking about how God does things, or how God's love operates when it abides in one's soul.

Now to begin to knit anew,
With Love,