ALIVE AND WOOL

A yearly festival of wool sees drop spindles, peg looms, felted collars and yarns dyed in heavenly shades of old rose, hawthorn and hedgeberry fill a parallel world in which wool reigns supreme,

-  Jane Wheatley

ONE for the master, one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives down the lane…’ We were once so collectively smitten with wool that songs—or, at least, nursery rhymes—were composed about bags simply full of the stuff. Fire- and stain-resistant, hard-wearing, sustainable, hypoallergenic, wonderfully soft and fluffy, this natural fibre is brimming with benefits that manmade counterparts struggle to replicate.

George Mallory and his confrères tackled mountains in woollen plus fours; children of the 1950s wore Chilprufe wool vests and jumpers knitted by Granny. Today, climbers wear Gore-Tex and we have all got used to the ease and low cost (to us) of clothing in manmade fibres. Much of the wool clip from the nation’s sheep is shipped off to China to be made into carpets and barely covers the cost of shearing. Native breeds have given way to sheep that grow fast and produce the standard carcass required by supermarkets. If this sounds like a threnody for the loss of old ways, there is an alternative universe in which wool is supreme; a world you may not know existed—I didn’t—until you find yourself somehow wandering through the right portal.

Held in three vast halls at the Royal Welsh Showground, Wonderwool is an annual event (6,000 visitors last year) showcasing native British wool in every conceivable form— from the sheep’s back (some exhibitors bring their sheep with them) to bundles of unspun fleece via natural yarns and balls of plant-dyed colour ready to knit; there are handmade shawls, Fair Isle jumpers, rugs and soft felted toys. There are carders, drop spindles, peg looms and all manner of arcanery devoted to the creation of woollen artefacts.