The past year has been an incredibly exciting time for us in fibre. Our 2024 wool clip, sheared in early March, was our largest ever, with enough raw fleece to have three natural colours spun at Wave Fibre Mill: dark charcoal brown, pewter and white. They did an amazing job of getting our whole clip processed and skeined so we could bring it all to Knit City Toronto in May. This was the first big knitting show Brenda ever attended, and she brought Brittany Piper and Emily Foden of Viola Yarn Inc. with her to help with marketing the yarns and lambskins. We met so many amazing knitters, crocheters, sewers and crafters and started a sign up list for a newsletter!
On another front, Julia Gray opened grays Toronto, in Toronto’s west end, as a place to showcase clothing and other products made from Ontario Wool, and designers prioritizing natural materials and artisanal production. She made beautiful short jackets with the first fabric woven from our yarns by Wave Fibre Mill in September 2023. Julia has also showcased our farm and the fibre mill at 2 events at her store which drew wonderful crowds of interested people to hear all about what it takes to make an Ontario wool fabric. There were also farm visits to learn about our farming, and for a fashion photoshoot! Check out Julia’s store in Toronto at 1514 Dundas St. West in Little Portugal, as well as online at graystoronto.com.
And finally, a connection made from answering a phone call during the Covid pandemic, turned into a partnership where clothing designer Dana Lee Brown had Brenda produce beanies from our yarns for her eponymous collection. It was our first experience working with a designer through various samples and changes to land on a product which could be made at the farm to Dana’s specifications. Brenda has never made so many beanies in her life, and they’ve spread out to 3 locations in North America, Dana’s online store, Neighbours in Vancouver, B.C. and Ven.Space in Brooklyn, New York. Dana also made a visit to the farm to see how the sheep are raised, and put together a lovely short film about the sheep and their fibres, which you can find on Dana’s website at danaleebrown.com in the ‘Journal’ section. You can also check out Dana’s store on Bowen Island, B.C. at 589 Prometheus Place.
We continue to have conversations about fibre with Julia, Wave and Dana, and also got our fibre products certified by the Canadian Wool Collective (canadianwool.org) as ‘100% Canadian Wool. Grown and Milled.’ This year’s shearing will happen again in early March and we can’t wait to see what colours of yarn we can get produced.
Brenda will be doing some more wool product development over the year as she learns to use a flatbed knitting machine. Hopefully knowing how to use a circular sock knitter will help flatten the learning curve ;P