I'm not sure I'll have a prouder accomplishment all year--or a more surprising one. I think I have a few fingerprints left. Andy is gone for the weekend, so the kitties and I are having a crafting weekend. With their help, I finished the first project of the year. The colors are a bit more subdued in real life, but I don't know how to reduce the intensity of this cell phone's camera. I also cut some more strips for other projects, and wound another Hank from Hell: A couple years ago I bought some Feza Rio that was on clearance, and for a cashmere/merino blend, it's not at all soft, and until this yarn, I didn't know one could hank yarn badly, but there does seem to be a way to do it so unevenly that permanent kinks are put into the yarn, and if that weren't enough fun, rather than being normal human beings who tie the ends into the threads holding the hank in place, these deranged maniacs tied the two ends together and snipped off the end...
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And thanks for the laugh *wipes coffee off monitor*.
Don't give the Daily Mail any ideas that this might be caused by foreigners :-)
On a more serious note: the problem is an old one, it is a complicated one, and will not be easy to solve. To start with the farmers lose out on the sheering: it costs more to take the wool off a sheep than they get for the fleece. AFAIK the British Wool board has not been much help, and many farmers end up burying the fleeces because they see no other option. Heresy for some spinners, I know...
But there are small Davids fighting the big Goliath, and I love Cornish Organic and Wool Britannia from the lovely people at Knitwits in Penzance for that reason.
P.S. They do mail order, too :-)
P.P.S. Declaration of personal interest: I lived in Cornwall and wish the county's local businesses all the best
Hmh. While I support the use of wool in other products, I still think the large Aran sweater has it's place. That would be on me, given that my thermostat has been turned way down...