The Wonderful World of Wool...

We loved seeing you at our first family event of the year, The Re-Launch Lunch, for an afternoon of felting in the forest. And what better way to celebrate the return of spring than with a picnic after a long winter? We hope you enjoyed the workshop and we can't wait to catch up with you again and hear about all your new adventures! But before then, we thought we'd re-introduce the superstar of the event: ....... wool!

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Mouflon, a wild sheep species native to the Caspian region. Our closest living link to what sheep may have looked like before domestication.

Many thousands of years ago, humans began domesticating a four-legged, funky-looking animal. In those days, their hair was too short to create yarn so initially, they were solely kept for their meat, milk and skin. Fortunately, that didn't stop the farmer nerds of Mesopotamia, who, by 6000 BC, had begun selectively breeding sheep based on their coats, aiming to produce longer hairs in each new generation.

Shearing was a revolution, offering them those precious fibres without needing to sacrifice any sheep in the process. Eventually, the method of turning wool into yarn was developed, but prior to that, there was felting...

Mesolithic cave painting. Bundi, Rajasthan, India.

Felting may have been discovered by observing wool, that was stuffed into shoes for extra warmth and comfort, slowly form a stiffer material than the soft floof that they began with. However those geniuses were able to figure it out, once discovered, felted wool became one of the most important trading products of Mesopotamia. The Pazyryk, (nomadic people), who lived in the Altai Mountains from the 6th to 2nd century BC, have gifted us with some of the earliest and most amazing examples of felting. Carpets, garments and this amazing horse saddle, all created with felt, were excavated in the 20th century and survived this long thanks to a good helping of permafrost.

Paryzyk horse saddle cover made of felt & horse hair. 5th century BC. Hermitage Museum, Russia.

Felt shoe from Mazar Tagh

Namda rugs of Kashmir, India

Hungarian szür

Kepenek of Turkish shepherds

Iconic chechia of Tunisia

The wonder doesn't stop there.

Once felt started it didn't stop.

From the nomadic peoples of Mesopotamia, felting spread across Europe and Asia, referenced by Chinese, Indian, Latin and Greek scholars.

The nomadic people of Central Asia still use the traditional method of constructing a ger, or yurt, using layers of felt sheets over a wooden frame.

When felt eventually made its way to sunny Scotland, a new addition was added to the saga: singing.

The last stage in making felt is called fulling, but in Scotland this was known as waulking or luadh ("loo-ugh") in Gaelic. In this grand finale, the wool must be beaten to shrink and soften it before it can be used to make various garments. From this sprung an opportunity for women to gather, to share the laborious task and socialise. Folk songs play a huge part in Scotland's history, with a song for just about every activity and story, so it is only natural to find that there are also songs for waulking.

Women Singing at a Table (Waulking the Cloth), 1930, oil painting by Keith Henderson

Though many have been lost in time, the Outer Hebrides clung onto the tradition well up into the mid-20th century, where most waulking songs, or orain luaidh ("or-ine loo-ie"), have been documented. It was believed that it was unlucky to sing the same song twice so much of it was improvised. This was a place for the women to express their emotions, update their friends on recent events and support one another through song. As the session went on, the songs would gradually increase their pace, but the beat remained the same in order to produce an even, wind and waterproof felt.

Below is a clip from the 1941 British Council film, The Western Isles, which shows a snapshot of the traditional manufacture of Harris tweed with a waulking song.

But why all this effort? What makes wool so special?

There's a reason we've been using wool for so long, here's a few reasons why:

1. She's naturally UV-resistant. What an icon. Wool naturally absorbs those lovely but potentially damaging rays before they hit your skin, often providing the same protection as a 30+ spf bottle of your fave sun cream.

2. Wool has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. The outer waxy coating repels the build-up of mould, mildew and bacteria. Not only does this mean that it needs far less washing than other materials, as it repels odour-producing bacteria (big win), it also means that you are far less likely to experience an allergic or other reaction from wool.

3. That waxy coating also makes it resistant to stains. At a microscopic level, the wool fibres overlap one another like shingles on a roof and liquid stains can often roll right off or need only a gentle wipe away.

4. Wool can withstand being bent up to 20,000 times before breaking, making it super durable and often outliving the rest of your wardrobe.

5. Wool is a master at aiding body temperature regulation. Even when wet, wool can keep you warm. It can hold almost half its weight in water before you feel any wetness and retains 80% of its insulation value even when saturated. In summer, wool absorbs excess heat and moisture away from the wearer's body. In winter, wool traps air and warmth next to the wearer's body.

Unfortunately, there is much controversy when it comes to wool production nowadays. On one hand, it is one of the most trusted materials, wonderfully biodegradable and adaptable, yet the current practice consumes large resources of land and water, in particular. The future of wool is undetermined, the past so long and vibrant. Whatever you feel about it, there is so much gratitude to be given to our ancestors who lived alongside the humble sheep, learning each other's secrets, and gifting us with so much knowledge and art. Gratitude can be given to the farmers, nomadic peoples and artisans who still live and breathe this work. Gratitude can also be given to the whistleblowers and environmental activists who highlight negative sides of and question the woollen industry. Conversation, collaboration and action from all of these groups together could offer much-needed guidance in shaping a balanced, thoughtful, wonderful world of wool.

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