About The Wool Channel
The Wool Channel exists to teach, celebrate, advocate, and ensure that the world reconnects with nature's original miracle fiber.
The Wool Channel (TWC) is brought to you by Clara Parkes, New York Times-bestselling author, teacher, speaker, yarn critic, one-time lab coat wearer on PBS, sporadic Instagrammer, and unabashed wool advocate. If you've never heard of me, here's my Wikipedia entry.
Everything that happens on TWC serves three fundamental objectives:
· To rebuild wool knowledge and awareness
· To rekindle passion for, and support of, wool
· To give wool a voice in the world
How Does it Work?
The Wool Channel has a free public side and a paid private side. The latter fuels the former.
Each month, one of TWC's email newsletters is made available to the public. It could highlight science or history or any of the cool, beautiful, creative things being made with wool, whether it's shoes or surfboards, lip balm or lounging pants, compost or coffins. It's a quick and easy read, designed to be enjoyed in three minutes or less. If you're new to wool or not ready to commit, this is a great place to start.
The private-facing side is the paid membership program, which fuels everything that happens on TWC. In keeping with our wooly theme, this group is called the Foundation Flock.
Foundation Flock members enjoy
- Weekly emails on geekier wool subjects, ranging from sheep to science to innovation and history
- A month-end livestream Flock Talk Q&A party in which I A their Qs and we plot our course for the coming month.
- And last but certainly not least, members get a golden key to our members-only playground, wool resource guide, and networking tool: TWC Community. It even has an iOS app—how cool is that?
No matter where you are on your wool journey, TWC has a place for you. We're headed deep into Wooltopia, and I'd love to have you on board. Let's learn, celebrate, help spread the good word, and elevate wool to its rightful place in our global conversation.
Get more. Learn more. Join The Wool Channel.
Why wool?
Wool is nature's original miracle fiber. We know this. It insulates and breathes and quiets and purifies and extinguishes, and at the end of the day, it's happy to return to the soil as mulch for your garden. Sheep are superheroes. When their grazing is managed with forethought, those superheroes can improve the health of the planet.
But wool is in trouble.
Not only does wool make up less than 2% of what we wear, but it’s been replaced by petroleum-based synthetics that are slowly choking the planet. We’ve moved so far from a wool world that a large chunk of the population doesn’t even think of a sheep when you say the word “fleece.” Upload a sheep-shearing video and Instagram will slap a "violent content" warning label on it.
The world has lost its wool knowledge.
We’re also coming to terms with the humanitarian, economic, and environmental consequences of fast fashion and climate change. Every day, well-intending consumers are being convinced that the kindest fiber on earth is, in fact, the cruelest—and they should strap recycled soda bottles to their bodies instead.
Meanwhile, the gorgeous, exciting, nuanced, and richly storied world of wool longs to be explored and celebrated. The people and places. The extraordinary inventions and ongoing innovation. The myriad ways in which wool is intertwined in our language, culture, religion, and literature. Ten thousand years of human history.
It's time to elevate wool to its rightful position in our larger cultural conversation. To build a strong, informed, passionate network of consumers who can advocate for wool in the world.