| Title | : | Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1419735314 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781419735318 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2019 |
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool Reviews
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If you’re interested in sustainable fabrics then you might enjoy this one. It felt a lot like a very specific podcast when I listened to the audiobook and for a long road trip that turned out to be just what I needed. It also made me want to reprioritize non fiction because it feels so good to LEARN.
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The author is an expert on wool and knitting and sets up a course for herself, 'Master of Yarn' and decides to get a bale of raw fleece and see how it can be transformed into finished yarn by different methods. It is an interesting journey, not particularly technical and interesting as it is without doubt a dying industry in the US.
Even the cheapest of American wool is about $9 a ball, she says, so that is a minimum of $36 for a sweater and you provide the labour for free. Fancy yarn can be up to $30 a skein. But it is this end of the market that is buoyant. People who want hand-dyed, pure wool, American yarns for their beauty and rarity and don't mind what they pay. But can that sustain processing mills who, unless they are big time, are dependent on almost antique equipment for which there are no spare parts?
The best thing about the book apart from learning a lot about a subject I knew very little about, despite growing up in sheep-farming country where the meadows were dotted with wooly white blobs all seemingly socially-spacing, is the author. She's very engaging and obviously has done masses of research but writes in such an easy way that I only had to reread the technical bits two or three times! It's a very personal book, she tells you what she thinks of people (only the nice bits though) and writes with humour. It's almost gonzo journalism.
I have to admit, I don't really like hand-knitted items, I feel bad about saying that after reading such a great book about an industry that needs consumer demand to support it, but it's true, they always look rustic or like something someone bought at a festival - now or in times gone by, the styles and vari-coloured yarns don't seem to change. But living, forcibly these days, on a tropical island, there isn't much call for a nice warm wooly, so I'm doing my bit by buying the book.
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Notes on reading Lamb chops or wool? The farmer prefers lamb chops as regular revenue and so the author got a 676 lb bale of finest fleece to transform into yarn. And she sees it through from sheep-in-the-meadows getting sheared through four different mills and methods to yarn, hand-massaged with dyes to delight the high-end knitters who snap up these works of art.
For people who are into free-range meat, there are no factory farmed sheep in the world, all are free range to a greater or lesser extent. In the US they are in enclosed farms, often huge, in South Wales where I'm from, they just wander the woods and meadows and only the sheep dogs know where they are. Which is why sheep dog trials is such a big sport in Wales.
This is interesting: wool as an industry is a failing one in the US, in part because the only growing market for it is looking for unusual fibres and colours, and the ASI (American Sheep Industry) shudders in horror at this. Standardisation is all! This is the bad side of capitalism, to standardise a natural product, to produce the most prolific and 'perfect-looking' fleece or vegetable - think of those awful Moneymaker tomatoes, red, round, pretty, cheap, tasteless. The upside of this is the growth of farmers' markets where people are willing to pay more for really tasty vegetables whatever they look like, even if they cost more. And for wool - specialist online yarn suppliers. -
A delightful memoir and behind-the-scenes look at the processes behind turning a bale of wool into yarn. Parkes’ writing is always engaging and finely balances technical writing with recollections of her adventures into the world of wool production.
Having decided to purchase a bale of wool, Parkes decided to follow the processing of the regionally-sourced bale, from scouring to spinning to dyeing. Her “Great White Bale” project spanned the country as each of the quarters of her bale got processed at different mills into different weights of yarns and then dyed using a variety of methods. From one of the smallest mills in the country to a commercial mill (that’s mainly known for spinning the yarn that wraps baseball cores) Parkes highlights the struggles of mills to stay afloat in the market and the difficulties finding parts for their ageing equipment, but also highlights the pride of these companies, continuing an American tradition as well they can in a society that doesn’t value wool nearly as much as it used. Her yarns also go to different kinds of dyers (natural, hand-dying, and commercial) to highlight their processes and how the different yarn will react with different dyes.
I loved each chapter highlighting a different point in the process, and I thought it was quite kind of all these companies, large and small, to let Parkes shadow them along the way, watching her bale get turned into colorful string. While the book is obviously going to be appealing to knitters and other fiber artists, Parkes also uses language that describes some of the processes and terms for the layperson who might just be curious into the wool processing process–it’s definitely accessible to all readers!
My only issue with the book was that there were no pictures at all. I can’t say if there won’t be any pictures in the final copy, since I read an ARC, but it’s a book that’s definitely deserving of them. While I understand if Parkes/the publisher couldn’t obtain permission to use them from the various companies she worked with, there at least could have been some pictures of the Great White Bale itself, Eugene’s farm, and the final yarns before and after dyeing. Pictures of the plants and mills would have been even better. It’s about the only thing that kept this from being a full 5 stars.
Highly recommended, and a highly enjoyable read!
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!
(Cross posted on
my bog.) -
I was fortunate to be a member of the Great White Bale Explorers' Club back in 2013, so some of this tale was familiar to me. In it, Clara Parkes describes how she came first to buy a bale of Saxon Merino wool and then to learn how commercial yarn is made by having the wool processed at four different mills. In telling her story, she relays a lot about the history of the American wool industry - its rise, its fall, and its current, nascent renaissance. Parkes writes: "My work would have been much easier if this project had taken place before 1775. I would have handed my bale to a farm family and watched them turn it into fabric. The children would tease open the fibers and prepare them for spinning. The women would spin the fibers into yarn, and the men would weave that yarn into fabric. That's how textiles were made. By hand" (73). This slim volume is really a delightfully told story about the rise and fall of the industrial age, and how it impacts our lives today.
I've always been interested in mills (it's a thing, don't get me started) so I was in hog heaven with this deep dive into four American wool mills: Bartlett Yarns Woolen Mill in Maine, Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill in Wisconsin, Kraemer Yarns in Pennsylvania, and S&D Spinning Mill in Massachusetts. Parkes had the same wool spun four different ways at these mills. Some yarn was also dyed before passing it along to her funders/explorers. She paints a loving and vivid picture of these places that transform raw material into the fabric of our lives. Here's one passage I especially love, about the spinning mules at Bartlett:If there is one thing I wish for you in this world, it is a chance to witness a spinning mule in action. It is a beautiful ballet of fiber and machinery that mimics the movements a handspinner makes when using a walking wheel. The spool of ninety-six pencil roving ends is moved off the cards and over to the mule, where it's placed on a fixed head called the "creel." Each of those ninety-six ends is fed through rollers and attached to a corresponding bobbin on a carriage. Set in motion, this elegant chorus line of bobbins pulls away from the creel, traveling some five feet on a metal track, all while each bobbin is rotating and applying twist to the roving. (84)
I was fascinated by the history of each mill and the decisions that owners made in order to stay in business. Each one is a little different, but they all react to the winds of change. About the brothers running the Kraemer mill, Parkes says "If history and globalization had their way, their business would not exist. Yet it does, running smarter and faster on vapors of what it once was, with a skeleton crew and a fraction of the original equipment. It's the twenty-first-century industrial version of selling the silver, firing the butler, moving into the gardener's cottage, and doing their best to preserve the heart of their family's legacy. In other words, adapting" (131).
What a wonderful chronicle of a yarn maker's journey. I loved every minute of it and plan to love it again when I reread it! And now, I think I'll go spin some wool, by hand... -
In Vanishing Yarn, Clara Parkes makes a comment about
Michael Pollan as though she couldn’t possibly aspire to be on his level when it comes to writing; I’d say that on occasion, she comes close. She has the same easy to read self-deprecating style, the same determination to put herself out there and dive wholly into the topic she’s grabbed hold of as well as the ability to include character sketches of the individuals she meets along the way that make you care about them and their lives.
This is a book that mourns the effect that globalization has had on the yarn and textile industry in America and the people who work within it, all through the project of following a 600 something pound bale of yarn from sheep to end product, from scouring, to carding to spinning to dyeing –and no, I didn’t know what some of those terms were before I opened the book either. Occasionally the descriptions of the individual machines can get a little hard to visualize and Youtube videos may help you here, it would have been nice to have some photos of the machinery and even more so, some color photos of the finished yarn but I know that adds to the printing costs.
Perhaps the topic doesn’t sound too enthralling, especially if you aren’t a knitter but it was surprising the tension Parkes managed to create when describing releasing the bale from its wire restraints after scouring, the humor in haunted mill basements and some truly awful wool puns and then the surprising tears that well up in, of all things, the acknowledgements. All the way through the book it is clear that its author is passionate about wool and American made wool at that, in supporting the industry and the people who make their living from it and encouraging us as consumers to support it ourselves by wearing and using American made wool. As she says in the final chapter, ‘Whether it’s shepherding or shearing or scouring or spinning or dyeing, I keep coming back to the fact that each of these links in our chain is in peril. These are not a museum to the past. Each deserves strengthening.’ -
Took a chance on this one -- I know nothing about wool, yarn, fabrics, knitting, but I get a kick out of books about someone doing some crazy project for a year, and this is certainly that. Clara Parkes, a yarn reviewer (yes, apparently that is a real job), decided to really find out what goes into manufacturing yarn by following the trail from sheep to finished product. She bought a bale (over 600 pounds) of wool and had it cleaned, processed, dyed, etc, and writes about it. She had to go all over the country and it's an interesting tale of the state of manufacturing in America (and the world) today. I started fading out when the details got too technical, but the overall project held my attention, along with a lot of quirky characters that Parkes met along the way. Plus sheep and dogs.
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This is a subject I know a little about from our small flock & the hand craft perspective of knitting/crocheting yarn I've spun from fleece. That's just enough to know how ignorant I am, especially about the commercial processes, so I really looked forward to this teaching me more. It's well narrated by the author, but it was an educational disappointment especially given the high rating it has. The overall journey of her "white bale" from sheep to finished yarn could have been really interesting if she'd actually done some research & used hard numbers. Instead she seemed to think total ignorance was the way to walk into new, complex situations. This was dumbed down because complex processes were often too much for "poor-little-old me" to handle which is ridiculous! She can't be as stupid as she makes out.
She constantly used vague terms like 'eco-friendly', 'organic', & 'natural'. I'm all for being 'eco-friendly' & she missed plenty of opportunities to show how being so is probably less expensive in terms of sewage & waste disposal if nothing else, but she never mentions this or why any of these are actually 'good' or even what the alternatives are. As she constantly points out, the wool industry has just about disappeared in this country & is in trouble around the world. I know this & we're on the same page when it comes to our love of wool, but economics is full of hard numbers that must be met or the business isn't sustainable.
There were no pictures, although she mentions taking them, so I had to search out pictures & further explanations of complicated equipment online. I couldn't even find them on her blog or web site which I'll list at the bottom of this review. Overall, this was a disappointment; a vapid day trip instead of a decent look at the industry.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Girl Meets Bale: Interesting. A 676 pound bale of wool sounds like a lot to me since I can take years to spin & knit up a single fleece, but apparently it's an awkward amount; too big for hand & too small for commercial. Her solution is cool - crowd sourcing the financing & processing in 4 batches, but I was left with a lot of questions:
Why 4 batches?
About how many fleece in a bale?
Why is the bale this weight/size?
CHAPTER 1 - Wool Harvest: I had as little to do with our 50 Dorset ewes as possible & Mom sold them off 25 years ago, so I don't know much yet I still found this chapter horribly lacking. She obviously doesn't know a thing about sheep or shearing & didn't bother to do any research before or after. Instead she relied on a single day visit to one farm & wasted space describing her feelings of ignorance & wonder. She barely describes the flock or farm.
She didn't mention that there are 3 basic types of sheep: fiber, meat, & dairy. In all types, half the lambs are male & are usually butchered. She does mention turning some of the lambs into sausage, but she fails to mention what that means in terms of time, labor, feeding, or why they aren't kept for wool in the fiber breed she is 'researching'. Since meat lambs are an Easter specialty, our breeding & thus lambing season varied. Mom set it with extra feed & letting loose the rams. (Sheep don't take well to artificial insemination.) That meant a partial shearing was needed if there was an early lambing. Parkes does mention some of the dangers of not shearing the teat & backside areas.
Parkes didn't describe anything about feeding or caring for the sheep beyond a vague story of their grazing. Nothing about birthing, a relatively short period (maybe a month) of little sleep punctuated by moments of terror when there is trouble. There's constant counting & scanning of the fields for newborns, too. She says nothing about tail docking & neutering or how/why these are done.
She also didn't see the cutest moments in creation when the lambs are nursing with their butts wiggling & tails spinning like a propeller. Or when they're playing "King of the Mountain" with their mother as the mountain. She didn't mention if the number of lambs was bred for in this flock or how many they typically had. Our Dorsets averaged more than 2 & we bred for 3 since that meant more money. Was that a consideration with the Merino flock?
Worst of all, she completely misses conveying the tension & wonder of shearing. In Maryland, we used to get an Australian crew who roamed the world following the shearing seasons to help shear ours. In a few minutes, they used a 3" wide head the clippers to cut the fleece off in a single piece while rolling the ewe around to gain access. Wow! This 2 minute video shows the process fairly well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53KoR...
Then we'd have to rush to get the ewe & fleece out while getting another in through temporary gates. It was crowded & there were cut/squished hands, sweat, & cussing. The Merino flock she saw was always sheared the first week of March by a local. End of story. Boring.
Why is keeping the usable fleece in one piece so important? I still don't know & I was hoping to learn. She mentions inadvertently cutting the skin, but not that it's a lot tougher to do with modern shears compared to the grass clipper things that some still use. She didn't mention the clippers or anything about their history. She mentions rooing (plucking fleece) but nothing about the time frames or types/breeds. Nor did she mention how the the ewe is positioned to stretch the skin to avoid this - it's a high skill. I hoped she'd teach me more, but even I could easily add a chapter to her poor coverage.
Belly, leg, & bottom fleece is soon trashed & she does describe both the process & the reasons for that well enough, but she makes bagging the fleece seem easy. Hah! It's a nasty job that leaves everyone covered in greasy, smelly lanolin mixed with manure from the unwashed fleece. We had a metal staircase to hold the 3'x8' burlap bag once we'd filled what we could from the floor. I eventually had to climb down into it & pull the fleeces past me to where I could stomp them tight. When I worked my way to the top, I'd sew it shut & tip it onto the forks of the tractor since it weighed 300 lbs or so.
This whole chapter was far too superficial & missed far too many important points. Not a good start.
CHAPTER 2 - Double Bubble Bale and Trouble: The lack of scouring & processing facilities as they close due to offshoring & the entire process was interesting. Again, her lack of prior research & preparation was irritating. I don't understand why she seems to think going in blind is a good thing. She admits to missing too much each time & yet continues to do it.
CHAPTER 3 - Infiltrating Big Wool: I like her idea that the American Sheep Industry Association should pay attention to the little guys, but I wonder if the numbers back her up? We won't learn it with her lack of research & vague wishes. She didn't even mention that the 1995 loss of the wool credit put a lot of smaller operations out of business. Mom sold her flock then because it cost more to shear the sheep than she got for the wool. Even with her shearing as many as she could & most of the income coming from meat sales, the loss was enough to make her operation a financial loss. She found the market glutted with others selling, too.
CHAPTER 4 - Moving Bodies: Shipping sucks, but she knows people who do it & yet she asked none for advice. She's supposed to be a kind of investigative reporter & yet she can't figure out how to find someone in the industry to explain it? I'm not & yet I've managed it a couple of times including getting things crated. Her trials opening the bale just made her seem like an idiot. She finally does say there are 183 fleeces in her bale.
CHAPTER 5 - Ready to Roll: Repacking the wool was simple since she had the talent right there & should have known it. She must have known it & just wrote this to make herself seem stupid. Well, intentional ignorance is stupidity.
CHAPTER 6 - Bartlett Bound: Her description of the business, plant, & machinery were OK, but I really didn't get what a spinning mule was. I googled it & immediately found a good page from the UK.
https://www.belpernorthmill.org.uk/co...
Why couldn't she provide pictures, illustrations, or even the names of helpful sites to search for?
CHAPTER 7 - The Stradivarius of Salvage: How different methods create different yarns is really interesting, although I don't have her feel for yarn. I feel their pain at keeping old equipment working, but wonder at their economics. Being down for 6 months due to the lack of a part seems ridiculous when new equipment is available. Again no numbers to make sense of it, though. Parkes is more in her comfort zone working with fibers, so there's a little more depth. Still no pictures so I had to search the Internet.
CHAPTER 8 - Journey to the Heart of the Madder: Natural dyes are interesting & I've tried a few in woodworking, but would never use them on wool. Parkes lists a few reasons most don't use them any more, but fails to mention some can cause rashes when sweat leeches them on to skin. I saw a really bad case from a scarf sold at a craft sale where I was selling my bowls. It was fast & furious. 'Natural' doesn't equate with 'healthy' or 'good', it simply means a lot of chemicals that are unknown. 'Organic wool' is a scam.
CHAPTER 9 - Rust Belt Revival: I was really lost in her machine descriptions in this chapter, but the business side was a little better. Interesting family & struggle.
CHAPTER 10 - Tree House Confessions: The best chapter, IMO. I hand dye my own yarn & I've actually tried one technique described here (squishing in multiple dye colors which I thought of on my own) but I didn't know about steaming. I had the problem described with mixing & muddy colors. I'll have to delve more into finishing techniques since I had no idea it could change the yarn so much. This is more like it!
CHAPTER 11 - Saved by the Ball: I had no idea baseballs were covered in wool. It's really scary that a single contract can make or break a company too, but I work for a small manufacturing company & know how easily it can happen. I owned a Navy Pea jacket for years & loved it. Finest kind & it will be a shame if they do away with them.
CHAPTER 12 - Halloween Spooktacular at the Haunted Dyehouse: Interesting commercial dye information, people, & business, but she dismisses a fairly straightforward calculation as too complicated for her. Again, idiocy is not cute.
CHAPTER 13 - Casting Off: Sums up the book fairly well, although the names came at me a bit too fast, so I had to read them in the ebook. It was nice to find out what happened to the people & businesses she'd visited years before in her quest.
I agree we need to tell people about wool, but I think college is too late. Teach kids in school. Bring back the Industrial Arts programs. Kids are curious & eager to learn even from an old curmudgeon like myself. I've taught some woodworking, knitting, & such. Some have 'helped' me fix their parents' spinning wheels, looms, & made their own knitting needles & crochet hooks. Hands on learning early usually beats books later.
Other Items of Interest:
Parkes' Blog:
http://www.knittersreview.com/
Parkes' web site:
https://claraparkes.com/
If you're interested in fiber, I highly recommend
The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. It's a bit much, but a great reference & worth skimming through before going to any fiber festivals.
Sheep: The Remarkable Story Of The Humble Animal That Built The Modern World is a really interesting history of the species. -
Clara Parkes is a wool and yarn nerd. She decided to buy a bale of wool that weighed almost 700 pounds from a shepherd in upstate New York and then for a year, she followed it to mills, and processors to learn the state of wool production today in America. She had no idea what she was getting into. Luckily she has a great sense of humor and adventure.
This may sound like a dry technical tale. Instead it was to me a story of American ingenuity and perseverance. In New England, the landscape is populated by the remains of a once thriving textile industry. My Irish great-grandparents are buried in New Hartford, CT which was the site of a cotton mill. I don’t much about them, but as poor immigrants, it is possible (even probable) that they worked there. Parkes learns as she travels from upstate New York to Texas to northern California, Pennsylvania, and back to New England, the devastation that NAFTA caused in the American textile industry. Textile mills and numerous manufacturers closed their US sites and moved off shore. The industry, particularly the wool business, is in crisis. The US Navy recently decided to change the traditional wool peacoat for parkas made of synthetic materials. This will lead a number of factories that produce these jackets to close. Parkes notes that the decline of wool was well advanced in the UK a decade or more ago. The founding of The Campaign for Wool in 2010 has started to have an impact, and the tides are turning in the UK.
http://www.campaignforwool.org/the-ca...
In the UK and increasingly in the US, farmers are reviving rare sheep breeds. I have become a fan of farm-raised yarns, from farms local to me, and as far away as the Shetland Islands in Scotland.
I am fascinated by the machinery that was created to process yarn and the functions of these various machines. Parkes describes this machinery in detail, which fascinated me. On a tour of a yarn mill in the Shetlands, it boggled my mind to imagine to how someone (or multiple someones) ever conceived of this machinery and built it. I often think of the closed down factories with all that beautiful technology left to rust all over New England and the South. Parkes describes some of the remaining mills and their efforts to buy up these machines when they are available. They are rescued, and it is unlikely that new ones will ever be built.
Parkes also reminded me that the wonderful textile museum in Lawrence Massachusetts shut its doors a few years ago, when the finances to keep it open were no longer available. But there are small efforts at rescuing some of these shuttered mills. While many have been repurposed to house “modern” businesses as well as upscale apartments, some continue to have a wool connection. In Harrisville, New Hampshire, Harrisville Designs was established in 1971 to maintain the textile tradition in the village. It is made up of two (or more) brick buildings where the production of virgin wool yarn continues, and they continue to manufacture knitting yarn.
https://harrisville.com/pages/our-story
I recommend a visit or perhaps taking a course there. It’s a beautiful spot.
While this is obviously a book that will appeal to knitters and other fiber artists, there is a lot that will appeal to those interested in the state of textile businesses and more.Highly recommended. -
Uneven and desperately needs pictures. I recommend looking up videos of the equipment described, for example a nice video of a Davis & Furber carding machine:
https://vimeo.com/271696753
Also I was really unclear on when this was happening. Published in 2019, and mostly written like the events were very recent, but then Parkes would make a statement like "it would be another four years before [some following event]." A date would have been nice to help me place this.
And what is with those magazine-style enlarged-font blurbs from the text inserted periodically through the book? They were really distracting and I cannot for the life of me figure out why you'd do that.
Overall, this was not what I thought it was going to be. I didn't learn what I expected, based on the description in the book jacket.
The last chapter is the best chapter and Parkes did a great job wrapping things together and tying in the decline in American manufacturing. -
I picked this up in honor of my MIL who passed away last year, far too soon. For years, she raised angora goats, ran a spinning mill, and personally hand-dyed/painted her gorgeous yarns. Not sheep, but it’s the same idea. Parkes, a natural storyteller, takes us along as she transforms 600lbs+ wool into yarn at various places using different techniques, all while teaching us about the waning wool industry. Kathy would’ve loved this! 💚
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Really interesting taking the process from shearing to wool and the people involved and another industry affected by international trade.
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As a knitter, spinner, and former farm dweller, the elements of this book fascinated me. Parkes does an excellent job detailing the state of the wool textile industry in the US in a way that is interesting an easy to read. The only drawback I saw was that there wasn't a single photo to go along with this documentation. She mentions photographing the wool bale, machinery, etc. and yet not even one snapshot is included with the book. I would have loved to see some of the things described so I could understand them better. I also felt I didn't get a picture of what the involvement of the people Parkes sent yarn to was, or what if anything came of that. It left an interesting and charming book feeling a touch incomplete.
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My family is going to suffer for this book - it makes me want to donate my large stash of mainstream-brand yarn and buy some really expensive hipster wool.
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3.5 This was so cosy, I loved hearing about the hand dyeing and the characters of different people who work in the industry, although I did find some of the descriptions of machinery went over my head.
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Clara Parkes is a weaver of words! I laughed, I cried, and I am so appreciative for the inside look into the industry and people that create the wool I love so dearly as a knitter. I not only recommend that every knitter read this, but anyone who loves and appreciates a beautifully written story.
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Very interesting! This book should be made into a documentary so we can see all of these sheep, people, machines and processes in action!
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This is a delightful book by Clara Parkes that I rated 4 ⭐️ and read on Audible.
I think that people who would most enjoy this nonfiction book are knitters, spinners, weavers, 🐑 people/farmers, ranchers, crafters, and anyone who loves learning about a very old livlihood, trade, and craft or making their own.
I am a long time knitting enthusiast, although I don’t do too much of it now, living in California, I have taught children and adults to knit, and have seen sheep being shorn, taken wool back to my school, and had some carding and spinning lessons.
I love history and important trades that Europe and the states have done for centuries, as both a livlihood and for good and needed products. Real wool…think about the enormous steps from raising sheep to shearing, to cleaning and carding the wool, and on and on.
Although the author lives on the east coast of the states, she travels all over the northeast, and across to the Midwest to Wisconsin, California and Texas, because she has bought a big bale of wool. We are talking 700 lbs! Cracks me up. Parke walks us through the history, processes, and many many steps that she went through to obtain and ultimately turn it into dyed and spun yarn. We meet people who have been in various parts of this business, whether new or through their ancestors, as well as highly successful people who want or need a change of life, and those naturalists and creatives who are drawn to the craft itself. The Navy is mentioned since they used to have an east coast mill make all of their navy wool pea oats, but are now trading them in for synthetic versions. Ugh! Also a well know online department store/manufacturer is mentioned who used to use US wool for it’s beautiful sweaters and other products, but now sends it overseas to save money.
Clara Parke is an enthusiast who will pull you in with her interesting, historical, and factual info. I read this on audio narrated by Parkes who did a terrific job keeping a subject from getting tedious or too dry. Bravo! -
I took a spinning and dyeing class in college, this brought back so many memories, from spinning and dyeing my own colors, with hands coated in lanolin, to making an art project in another class from wool.. I have not touched raw fibers in many decades but I enjoyed reliving my past. This book is trying to revive the wool industry, If raising sheep for wool was not tied to the slaughter of lambs I would be more agreeable, but the reality is not for me... long live cotton!
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The writing was okay and the author's journey through the sourcing, spinning, and dyeing of wool was okay. Not great, just okay. The publisher added an annoying restatement of what was perhaps thought to be profound (it wasn't) and added bold and large sentences directly from the text on various pages. This added absolutely nothing. Some interesting things to learn about the history of spinning and dyeing wool yarn were shared and kept me interested in finishing the book.
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The writing was delightful, and I LOVED the premise, but man, she lost me whenever she described a machine. I would have loved illustrations or photos.
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More points for a writer so passionate about the topic. She loves yarn! If you do too then you'll enjoy learning about her adventure.
There's also an overall message about the dying textile industry in the U.S., which is sad but worth knowing about. -
A very relaxing and enjoyable read. Very informative and told in very steady tone. It was so nice going on Clara’s journey with her.
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I think I'd best convey my feelings about this book by pointing you to
Janelle's excellent review of it. She covers all the bases, and much more eloquently than I ever could. Suffice to say, I enjoyed every minute of it, too. I actually set aside knitting so I could focus on this. So there you have it.
Clara Parkes is a most excellent writer who can explain rather complicated concepts and machinery quite well. As a knitter, I was all in on her journey of exploring the history and current status of American wool manufacturing. I was most taken with her call to support this industry in the final chapter. Buy and wear wool, people!
A few format notes. The book wasn't illustrated, so I had to stop and look up pictures of what some of the equipment looked like from time to time. But it's a very well-made book printed on heavy paper and with green chapter running heads and page numbers, which were a nice touch. I found the magazine article-style pull quotes a bit distracting -- they weren't necessary and seemed to be there to take up space (this isn't a very long book). -
A thoroughly enjoyable exploration of wool, from sheep to needle. Parkes received a bale of wool from a friendly sheep farmer in New York, and trucked it to four different factories and a few different dyers to get a front-row seat of the process of bring wool from the animal to the consumer. Parkes writes with good humor, a thorough appreciation for yarn, and an interest in the mechanical processes of refining wool.
Before reading Vanishing Fleece, what I knew about yarn production was limited to the shearing scenes in Farmer Boy and the Far from the Madding Crowd adaptation (or were they washing the sheep in that scene? It is a very sheepy movie.). And, of course, images of Tasha Tudor carding and spinning her own yarn. I think I once carded for a few seconds at a living history place. Oh, and I have a vague awareness of O. Henry's stint on a Texas sheep ranch. For an avid knitter like myself, learning about yarn production was a revelation.
Parkes is perhaps the world's only professional yarn critic. Dry as that may sound, she writes engagingly and manages to make large, dangerous machines seem personable. Vanishing Fleece isn't very long, either, but the expanse she covers--the amount of traveling she does--is vast. I learned a lot about yarn production, of course, but also left with an even greater appreciation for wool than I had. Parkes mentions the need to create a wider market for wool, largely by some sort of public campaign. In England, wool production rose after the Prince of Wales's campaign for it. When I was in the Lake District in 2019, sheep roamed freely in the national park, spray painted with their owner's color. (Don't ask me how they rounded them up at shearing time.) Much of what I saw was a Viking-era breed whose fibers were destined for industrial carpets.
Personally, to raise appreciation for wool, I find a few myths that need debunking. First, good quality wool isn't itchy, as some persist in believing. In fact, it may help with eczema management,
according to one study.
Another studyfound that wearing wool improved the quality of life of patients with atopic dermatitis. Silk blends help with softness (and color vibrancy), and one of Parkes's batches has silk added. Secondly, wool is often written off because of its high cost, especially the boutique hand-dyed skeins.
Brown Sheep Nature Spun yarns are not quite so expensive, however; according to Parkes, more ranchers are needed to provide the market with less expensive wool yarns. Third--this is the myth I'm seeing debunked most frequently--"young people just aren't interested in handicrafts." Upon these mythmakers I toss my plethora of handknit garments. Whether it's Instagram influencers seeking the cottagecore aesthetic, lockdown weariness reawakening latent interest in handicrafts, or the desire for a portable hobby that can be enjoyed while traveling or watching TV, knitting is growing among the youngsters. I, for one, did not have a family member who knitted, but I learned the skill in home school co-op at 13, and later taught other young teens and pre-teens as a high schooler. Since then, I've learned new stitches and techniques online. Every public library I've joined in the past 15 years (4 of them, in 3 different states) has had a knitting group for teenagers. The hands and needles are ready. They just need wool. -
Clara Parkes sa väčšinu svojho života venovala písaniu o vlne. Jedného dňa sa dostala k balíku vlny a rozhodla sa sama si vyskúšať, ako sa z ovečky stane klbko priadze - svojmu projektu naviac pridala vyššiu obtiažnosť, pretože svoje ovčie rúno sa rozhodla spracovať výlučne v USA. Z knihy priam srší jej láska k vlne a priadzi, no o to je jej rozprávanie smutnejšie, pretože priemysel spracovania vlny v USA upadá a postupne vymiera. Mala som obavy, či bude táto kniha pre mňa prínosná, pretože opisuje úpadok amerického vlnového priemyslu, ale sama autorka pripomína, že podobná situácia je v mnohých krajinách a bohužiaľ je o vlnu ako takú čoraz menší záujem alebo sa jej spracovanie presúva do Číny a Indie. Na Slovensku je situácia ešte oveľa smutnejšia - prednedávnom som videla reportáž, že u nás je vlna odpadový materiál, o ktorý takmer nikto nemá záujem a využíva sa predovšetkým na zateplovanie budov :(
Počúvala som to ako audioknihu, ktorú načítala sama autorka a bolo to veľmi príjemné. Svelý podmaz k pleteniu, hehe. Predpokladám, že tlačená kniha obsahuje aj fotografie, ktoré mne osobne dosť chýbali. Takisto som sa aj dosť strácala medzi všetkými menami, takže možno by som viac odporúčala siahnuť po tlačenej verzii.
Rozhodne odporúčam nielen ľuďom, ktorí pletú, ale aj všetkým, ktorých zaujíma udržateľná móda. -
Vanishing Fleece by Clara Parkes is a guided tour through that American wool industry. As a handspinner and knitter, I found this book fascinating. I am accustomed to purchasing my wool in roving form, already processed and dyed by others, ready to spin on a wheel or spindle. I'd been vaguely aware that a lot of work went into moving fiber from sheep to skein, but I hadn't realized how precarious the industry is, with limited numbers of scourers and mills, seemingly all walking a tightrope to stay in business.
Following Parkes journey as she follows a bale (676 pounds!) of wool from scouring, through spinning, and dyeing, was surprisingly fascinating. Each chapter flew by as we traveled through the process, visiting mills with various types of historical and modern machines. It was an eye-opening revelation about the state of the wool industry.
I especially enjoyed the chapter on the Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill in Mt. Horeb, WI. I feel a special affection for that mill. I've knit four shawls from their lovely yarn, including the shawl I wore at my wedding. I'd never visited the site, and reading about the mill felt very personal,
My primary criticism/wish is that I would have liked photographs. I read an advanced copy, so this may change in the published version, but Parkes mentioned taking photographs so many times in the book that I would have loved to have seen some, or had a link to a website where I could see some.
This book ends on a note of hope for the wool industry in the US. Though it's clear that the road is long and bumpy, Parkes describes the folks willing to travel that road and continue to provide avocational spinners and knitters with the wool we love.
I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley. -
I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. I was delighted to be chosen to review Clara Parkes new book Vanishing Fleece, Adventures in American Wool because I’ve enjoyed reading her previous books and was curious about the process of how wool goes from the sheep to the skein of wool that I purchase for my knitting.
The story began when Clara was offered a bale of wool from a sheep farmer with whom she was acquainted. This lead her to wonder what could I do do with a bale of wool and so began an exploration of the wool industry in the U.S. I found the tale of how the wool goes from sheep to skein intriguing and it’s given me a new appreciation for the lovely yarns in my stash. Learning about the process and the people involved in keeping the American wool industry alive was fascinating and I highly recommend reading this book. Publishing date October 1, 2019. #VanishingFleece #NetGalley #ClaraParkes #AmericanWool #Bookstagram #KnittingBooks -
I purchased Vanishing Fleece from a recent Audible sale when I realized that I had never read any of Clara Parkes' books even though I've been a knitter for decades. This was a fun and educational book where Clara recounts to readers how she turned a 676-pound bale of fine Saxon Merino fleece into yarn. She makes plans as she goes, and we are transported along with her as she cuts open the bale, divides it into four parts, and has them spun and dyed in different ways at four different mills across the US. Clara is an excellent storyteller, and her voice is well-suited to narrating the audiobook. I've always had an appreciation for beautiful yarn, but I now have a better appreciation for how the yarn is produced and all the people that make that happen.
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I wanted to read this book because I’m a knitter and have slowly begun to understand how much the quality/source of my yarn matters. On my journey in becoming a “yarn snob” I thought it befitting to learn about the process from sheep to needles. I intended to read this book slowly and learn a little bit about the process at a time. That did NOT happen. I became completely engrossed in Clara’s project and was deeply fascinated by every step. I found myself needing to know more and more until I had read the whole book. From shearing to air splicing and massage dyeing I fully loved this book, and feel passionate about the wool industry and will tell anyone with willing ears about it.
