The Wool Wire | June 19, 2025
People doing what they can for wool, where they are, with what they have in Arkansas, Ohio, Michigan, and Ireland.
News snippets from the wool world
Hello!
The legendary American tennis player Arthur Ashe famously said, "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." I often think about this in the context of wool.
How can each of us—from where we are, with what we have—do what we can to help grow the wool market? There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Gestures both big and small can move the needle. Today, I come bearing a few stories of people who are doing their part.
Knitters rejoice!
We begin with exciting news out of Michigan. Jill Zielinski—who has operated under the moniker Knitterella since 2009—has just taken a very big leap, launching her new yarn company called North Bay Fiber.
The company specializes in breed-specific wool yarns, all of which are sourced and custom-spun domestically and hand-dyed in-house. (Some of her first yarns were spun at Kraemer, which is now closed, but I trust she's found a replacement.)
She received invaluable help from Michigan's Small Business Development Center as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which ran this profile of Zielinski and what she hopes to accomplish with her business.
It eases the blow of saying goodbye to Brooklyn Tweed, no?
If you build it...
Arkansas isn't exactly renowned for its sheep and wool—at least not yet. But Dan Quadros, assistant professor and extension small ruminant specialist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, decided to change this.
He has created a new hands-on training course, Intro to Wool Fiber Systems: A Journey from Sheep to Shawl, and invited regional fiber figures and national pros to come teach. The program includes workshops on shearing, fiber processing, spinning, and weaving.
Lindi Phillips, of Heft Shearing, was on hand for the shearing portion of the program and had this to say:
We think a future area of growth is going to be regional textile economies, and not just in terms of garments, but in terms of all kinds of things that we use textiles for in our daily lives, like home insulation, shipping and packing materials.
JOHN LOVETT University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
Start 'em young
Education is a powerful way to move the needle. While the Arkansas program is geared toward adults, Lorna McCormack decided to focus on younger students when she founded Wool in School. The Irish Examiner caught wind and profiled McCormack last month.
As a result of her work, over 30,000 primary school children have learnt about wool’s sustainable qualities, with close to 800 of those having been taught to knit by Lorna herself.
“All the children love it,” she says. “There’s a supportive network in every class. Among the boys, part of the reason for its popularity is that there’s no competition between them, as they all begin knitting at the same time.
Small flock, big fleece
When Mid-States Wool Growers closed in 2023, many assumed that the wool market in the American midwest was effectively dead. But Ohio's Amy Schroeder begs to differ, as do I.
While Ohio has the largest sheep market east of the Mississippi, the majority of those sheep are raised for meat, not wool. In the early 2000s, Schroeder decided to change this. Her flock is small by global or even national standards, just some 20 Merino sheep—but her commitment to quality wool is exemplary, as is her passionate public advocacy for wool.
Wool is not worthless, you just have to find where it fits in and you have to put forth the effort to make that happen.
Bernadette Arehart
Words to live by!
On that note, I'll let you go. Thanks, as always, for your readership and your support.
Until next time,
Clara
