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Showing posts with the label Flashback Friday

Spring!

Spring is our reward for enduring a long winter. Our senses are full with birdsong, the scent of mown grass and tilled earth, breezes through the windows, and the beauty of flowers.  *Originally posted on May 8, 2013. Still pertinent.

Allergic to Wool?

I often hear folks admire our wool products and then turn away, sighing, "I'm allergic to wool." There are a few folks who are genuinely allergic to the lanolin in wool. Can't help them, although over time the lanolin washes out and should cause less of a problem. But the rest of those who are "allergic" to wool  may  be reacting to some thing else. The large wool manufacturers need to get a lot of ick out of the raw wool (imagine wearing the same clothes for a year!) and an easy way to do that is to use harsh chemicals. Some of us are simply sensitive to the  way  commercial wool is produced.  Our wool is cleaned using soap and water. In addition, hay natur ally gets in the wool over the course of a year. Each fleece is skirted after shearing, which just means we pull off the worst parts and discard them. In the washing and carding process at the mill some of the remaining hay comes out of the wool, and some is just broken up into really...