Tag Archives: wool

Inspiring creativity

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By Sophia Egerton, Outdoor Work Tutor Technician

When I joined the Outdoor Work team as a Tutor Technician in January, Andrew Martin shared one of my main priorities in a Saturday Bulletin article – to get the wool room in the Sotherington Barn bustling with students spinning, weaving, knitting and all sorts of other traditional yarn skills.

First though, I needed to organise the wool room on the barn’s mezzanine level which had become quite disorganised. In my spare time I have been busy sorting, clearing out and clearing the room, transforming it into a beautiful, calm and peaceful space that is conducive to learning, will inspire creativity and enhance the barn’s stunning structural features.

In keeping with our recycling and sustainability ethos, we appealed to the Bedales community for furniture, storage baskets and wool to help replenish and coordinate the space. Thanks to the generosity of the community (and a little extra help from Facebook Marketplace!) the wool room is now a fabulous teaching space with organised areas to promote independent working. You can see more photos below:

A cabinet donated by Bedales parent Courtney Winstone is now being used as storage for felting, sewing and needlework equipment. The old school uniform pigeonhole unit has been repurposed as storage for individual students’ work in progress, whilst a dresser from Facebook Marketplace is displaying vintage spinning and weaving equipment, carding paddles, Lazy Katie’s, Bobbins and a small library of reference books and patterns. Bedales parent Eliza Kenan also donated lots of vibrant coloured chunky wool, which will be great for teaching beginners. A huge thank you to everyone who donated and made the makeover of the wool room possible. 

I am passionate about heritage crafts such as crocheting, so I also decided to decorate the room with pieces I crocheted myself, including a blue dreamcatcher hanging from one of the beams. It will be so exciting to teach Bedales students these traditional crafts and to utilise the wool from Bedales sheep for creative expression. As ‘flow’ activities, crafts such as spinning, weaving, knitting and crochet are also super beneficial for mental health and wellbeing, as people can fully immerse themselves in the crafts and feel energised focus, involvement and enjoyment in the process.

Giving the room a makeover has also inspired me to crochet items of clothing using Bedales wool, and you can currently see a bolero I crocheted on display in Reception. Knitting and crochet kits will be coming to the Outdoor Work Farm Shop soon, so watch this space! 

The reaction to the room has been incredible and I can’t wait to see it used by students in the weeks, months and years to come. If any students are keen knitters or crocheters, please get in touch with me as I would love to discuss project ideas. 

Jacob sheep wool blankets available to buy

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By Marcella Craven, ODW Tutor Technician

Many of you may have seen the beautiful blankets and shawls sold in the Outdoor Work shop here at Bedales. We currently have large blankets (202cm x 149cm, £200) and medium blankets (142cm x 149cm, £120), as well as two wraps/shawls (£70) and balls of Jacob yarn, double knitting weight, in cream, dark brown and oatmeal (£4 per 50g ball) available to buy. To put in an order, please email outdoorwork@bedales.org.uk.

We thought you might like to know a little more about the work and process that goes into producing these unique items. The blankets and shawls are made from Jacob sheep wool, produced from our rare breed flock which numbers approximately 48 breeding ewes and lambs. Jacob sheep fleece is brilliant for weaving purposes as they produce different colours of wool which allow a natural coloured end product which has not been dyed in anyway.  The staple length of the wool is also excellent which makes it really popular among spinners.

Every year we hire a professional shearer to shear our flock. Shearing day usually takes place in June and is always popular with our students and our sheep, who enjoy getting a haircut once the weather warms up! It takes us around two years before we have enough wool fibre to make it worthwhile sending it to be processed into yarn.

Once shorn from the sheep, the fleeces are rolled and stored ready for our students to help sort the fleeces. They take away any old, matted or ruined wool from the fleece and separate the fleece into colours, white, brown and mixed colour wool. It’s a great way to learn about the qualities of raw wool, it’s many uses and feel the lanolin on their hands. This year we collected 132kg of white wool, 81kg of brown wool and 33kg of mixed colour wool (once spun this will be grey).

The wool is then rammed into large fibre sacks, which are sent to The Natural Fibre Company based in Cornwall.  They scour (wash) the wool and set up their spinning machines so that once spun and oiled the returned product is only the unique wool we have sent to them.

The mill make three products for us, spun yarn to knit with, washed and carded fibre to spin with at school and spun yarn to weave with. Once spun and on a cone, the weaving wool is sent off again.  This time it travels to Wales to the Melin Teifi Wool Mill in Dyfed, Ceredigion.  Here it is handwoven into the blankets, wraps and scarves which you would recognise from the ODW shop.

The effort, care, process and craftsmanship that goes into making these products ensures that the end result is totally air mile free, British made, and 100% Bedalian.

To celebrate lambing season and to mark the end of term, we are offering you the chance to WIN a medium blanket worth £120! Find out how to enter on Bedales’ Instagram page here.