The Wool Wire | February 13, 2025

News snippets from the wool world

Hello, my friends,

Let's escape, explore, and celebrate wool for a while.

For starters, we have another pellet success story, this from Nebraska. Megan Landes-Murphy was looking for a way to use the fleeces from her flock of 20 Shropshire ewes and five rams. With a world hooked on finewools, farmers like Landes-Murphy are often hard pressed to find ways to make the flock economically viable and stop throwing away wool every year.

After investing in wool pelletizing equipment, Landes-Murphy is now processing 10,000 pounds of wool each year for her company, Kestrel Ridge Pellet Co. If you're going to sell pellets, you have to be able to promise specific levels of nitrogen and other nutrients—and here, I was impressed to learn that samples from each batch are sent to an agriculture lab for testing.

Read a profile of her in Silicon Prairie News.

And if you're in Nebraska, consider using pellets from Kestrel Ridge and telling your friends.

Baa, Baa, Brown Sheep, Have You Any Wool?

Speaking of Nebraska, if you're a knitter, chances are you already know about Brown Sheep Company. For more than 40 years, this legendary Nebraska-based yarn company has been a staple of our stashes. They've been able to withstand the slings and arrows of dyehouse and mill closures for one simple reason: they are their own dyehouse and mill.

I loved this interview with Brown Sheep's current owner Andrew Wells, the grandson of founder Harlan Wells. He tells a great story and gives me hope for the fate of yarn and small businesses in this country.

The family that Flocs together

In New Zealand, one family business has just begun branching out to include the country's strongwool in its products—not for yarn but for our walls and ceilings.

For the past few years, the company which started as a tile ceiling specialist, importing most of the product, has been working on a new wall product made from sustainable New Zealand strong wool. Floc, as it is known, is a range of 100% New Zealand strong wool wall acoustic panels and ceiling panels.

Seriously tempted.

Canada Rewards Its Best

Last fall I was excited to learn that the Campaign for Wool Canada and the Canadian Wool Council, with support from the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, was establishing a new Canadian Wool Innovation Prize. The goal is provide much-deserved recognition to those who are innovating in the Canadian wool sphere.

Their inaugural prize went to not one but two innovators. Adorable needle-felting kit maker The General Bean and fourth-generation wool felt company Brand Felt.

You can read more about the prize and the inaugural winners here.

Taking the Long Way Home

You'll hear again and again that our clothes aren't made in the United States anymore—and that goes for the fabric in our clothes as well. One man who has been working tirelessly for years to buck the trend is Jacob Long, who relaunched American Woolen Company in 2014.

I thoroughly enjoyed this profile of Long in The Hartford Business Journal—including some inspiring news about the New England textile hub he envisions.

Strength in Socks

Another area of American-made textiles that shows surprising resilience is socks. Specifically, wool socks. Here's an insightful review of one major player, Sockwell Socks. While some of it reads like an infomercial, the piece still gets in some solid wool facts that always come in handy.

On that note, I'll let you go.

Thanks, as always, for your readership and your support.

Until next time,

Clara