The Wool Library: Putting British wool at the heart of the fashion industry

In this Farmers Guardian podcast, livestock reporter, Katie Fallon talks to the founders of The Wool Library, John Atkinson, Maria Benjamin and Zoe Fletcher about their aspirations to champion British wool within the UK's fashion industry. With a mixture of farming, art and fashion backgrounds John, Maria and Zoe have joined forces to try and create more opportunities for British sheep farmers and their wool products, by developing a greater understanding and awareness of the value of British wool products, within the UK's fashion industry. We hear their story about setting up The Wool Library, what they hope to achieve through the initiative, and how they hope to further support our Great British sheep farmers.

Transcript

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's Farmers Guardian podcast. I'm Emily Ashworth and I'm joined by chief Livestock reporter Katie Fallon. This week, Katie spoke to the founders of a new initiative called The Wool Library. Katie, can you tell us a little bit more about what you spoke to the founders about? Yes, so I spoke to the founders, John, Maria and Zoe. So John and Maria farm together in the Lake District. John's also a champion of the rare breed survival trust. And Maria is from originally from an art background and Zoe comes from a background in fashion design. So basically, the wool library is an organization which they have come together and set up to help farmers get the most for their wool and really highlight the value and potential of British wool. And it originally started with Maria and John looking to try and get Thomas more money for their wool. And the Rio initially started making tweed from James Banks as well. And then they basically gone on to work with sheep farmers, knitwear brands, suppliers and manufacturers to try and connect the dots and really help with the sourcing. A British wool and helping to create yarn using British wool and really just get out there and highlight what British wool can do and the value that it has. Sounds great. And like this is something that could really benefit the industry because we all know how wondrous wool is and how underutilized and perhaps undervalued it is. So I hope you all enjoy it. So I think it's probably a good place to start if each of you would like to introduce yourselves. A bit about your background and where you're from, because I know we've got both a fashion under farming background here. Yes. So my name's Zoe. I currently live in in Silverdale. So just over the Lancashire border. And but my background is in knitwear design. And so I did my undergraduate degree in textiles and fashion and then moved on to do my PhD, specializing in and designing for breeds, really looking into how we can start to promote British wool in fashion by being able to compile a database almost, or a toolkit for designers that easily allow them to get the characteristics that they needed for knitwear. And so looking into the staple length and the micron count, it was all those kind of commercial data bits that we need, but also team in that with the narrative. And so the amazing kind of heritage of 72 different pure breeds of British sheep, never mind the hundreds of cross breeds and across the UK being bred over generations and in specific geographical locations. So how can we really start to celebrate the differences instead of it continuing to kind of be homogenized into certain grades or type or and start to be devalued through the process? So it was really interesting for me from a design perspective to look into those characteristics and but I didn't want kind of my PhD thesis to be a dusty book on a bookshelf, so I wanted to see how it works in real life. So I teamed up with Maria and John to see how it fits in with kind of a real farming landscape and whether or not I could help to add value to kind of rare breeds and British native breeds. And through bridging that gap between what designers, makers and consumers wanted from British wool with the farmers and the people at the forefront breeding those sheep. Brilliant. And coming from that fashion, not necessarily a farming background will give you a totally different outlook into things and a different viewpoint, I guess. Absolutely. Yeah, it was. It's been really nice to kind of team up this great almost market in story that you wouldn't normally get when designers are so used to kind of taking Swatch books off a shelf and you get a nice shiny package arriving and every season you choose kind of on trend colors, but actually being able to navigate and solve problems of why something pills in a certain way are taken the designers right back and bringing them on that whole journey and seeing them kind of start to understand and see why. Farmers well, you kind of you see the kind of headlines in one side of the page 30,£40 a kilo, and you've got a £400 jumper at the other end integrating all those processes, see in those value chains and bringing them on that journey really starts to show them why there is that difference. Maria and John, you guys from the the farm inside of things, you want to just give us an insight into your backgrounds and what you do at home. Yeah, well, you know, I'm not a farmer either, but I joined John on the farm in 2015, so as you can tell from my accent, I'm from Scotland, but I lived in London for 12 years and I studied fine art there. I did my master's goldsmiths and yeah, just really had a hard life as an artist in London. But a new idea to end up on a farm. But here I am. And actually I think our skills complement each other. So joining John on the farm helped a bit, but I wasn't really able to add much value to the business and we both really wanted to be on the farm full time rather than work off the farm. So I was just it just kind of became my job to look at ways to increase our profit so that we could both be on the farm. And that's what I've done by making we have one jersey. Karen I make soap from her milk and we have also accommodation and we do a lot with wool. So that's really changed the whole farm business so that instead of John working off the farm and myself working off the farm, we're here full time and we employ people now as well. And then I guess John, he'll be the full time farmer Yeah, so I call myself a part time farmer because I spend most of my time at day dealing with what other people would say wasn't part of the farm really. But is it is vital to, you know, and so to get more related to the consumer, and I think that's one reason why farming is struggling, mainly because we got our products go through so many different hands before the reach the consumer, any provenance is lost. And so what we're trying to do is build up provenance back and working with Sally has been a real eye opener in how much the fashion world is a com absolute concourse. Look at a Swatch books she was talking about was stuff called Long Shetland Swale. And actually it was just a color. It wasn't and it was all merino wool but called British braid as a color. And it just opened my eyes and you know, Maria got some custom sheet which are really, really bad trade that we got a few and she made 20 kilos of well up to two. You're making two bowls wool. It's in wool. And that sort of started the process that we saw built now and this year will sunset off nearly turning towards wool to get processed. So the difference in sort of basically five, six years, it's been enormous, but it's been a massive learning curve as well. Yeah, I can imagine. So it would be great if you could tell us a bit about what what the wool library is and what it hopes to achieve and the role that each of you play within that. Oh, the wool library is a I mean, I guess it's very new because we all have our own well, so we have our own wool business called the Wool List. And, and I met her because she was giving a talk about her work and we just stayed in touch and I was doing stuff with our own wool on the farm and I had been buying James Banks's wool and making tweed with his wool and, you know, so I had quite a nice little business, but was quite small. And it was, it was quite hard for me to sell knitting yarn just because I'm not a minister. And so when there's really good technical knitters that come to me and want information about the yarn, like you know all about the micro and or the the cone and I've got no idea what they're talking about. So it became clear that I kind of really needed to work with somebody else and had a bigger knowledge if I wanted to grow the wool business, which I did. So although we've got these other strands to our business on the farm that do well and are actually much less need, much less cash injections and wool will is a tricky one. I just felt that that will culturally has so much more value than, you know, renting out holiday accommodation in the Lake District or even the store, which is a lovely business. But I just feel that the I was just shocked at the price that farmers are getting for wool. And I just felt it just became a bit of a mission that I wanted to to do something and so did John. And he knows all these farmers and, you know, they're asking him, Do you want to take my wool? So we just felt like, you know, we needed to make the business bigger. And so when I, when I had no idea that Zoe would be interested in working with us. So it was really, really so we're both really just that she, she wanted to do that and that's that sort of really changed both the business. It's tricky because I think at first we thought we can we worked with someone who I kind of will represent a representative that sells yarn to pretty much all of the knitwear companies in the UK. Right? And he was putting us in front of of brands, but they work in such a different way that it was really hard to, to penetrate because they, they just want everything at the cheapest possible price. It's not really about building relationships, it's just that they see that this is on trend at the moment and it just felt like we're going to be shafted and saw the farmers. So actually we just started working with smaller brands. So we worked with Opus Knitwear who's just an over stone making, making yarn for her, and we've worked with Glen Croft helping them source wool locally for their knitwear business. So that felt actually much more in line with our values, working with brands that share the same values rather than thinking, Yeah, let's try and get British rule in the high street because actually they're just not quite ready for they want it, but they're not so ready to change how they work. And I don't know what are kind of talk. So, you know, probably we're a podcast that's the whole that's going to get going. They know they'll get words and patience and to get out. And I was just going to say kind of it was it was still eye opening to see that the how do I puts it the lingo that they used and was about kind of regenerative, really kind of wanting to support the farmers, wanting to reintroduce kind of British wool into the fashion system. But it wasn't really about changing the fashion system. It was trying to shoehorn it into the conventional fashion system. And that means very fast turnarounds, like Maria said, kind of, yeah, trying to just penny pinching every single different place without actually understanding how much. And of a positive change they can make if they just slowed down the process allowed the consumers to come in. So it wasn't just about getting it for the lowest price, actually adding in half of the marketing budget that they would usually do to make things nice and glossy and bring in a celebrity or to to promote it. They could reinvest that into the raw product. And they've got an amazing marketing story with those kind of with the background knowledge of farmers and trying to introduce it to a conventional fashion system that really is working two years ahead but still needs the arms in two weeks, just doesn't fit with the finite amount of oil that we get each year and doesn't fit with the farming system That has been that is ingrained and so kind of set to kind of thrive in our amazing kind of British landscape. It just doesn't quite fit. So I think we were challenging ourselves as well because it would have almost been easy to get swept away and said, Okay, yeah, let's just make this one collection. But then we would have had to. We just got that slightly uneasy feeling of, well, actually these farmers are friends. We want to be in it for the long run with them. We want to keep coming back to them year on year, showing them the kind of the qualities of just easy, simple things like bringing your sheep in and not putting the fleece on straw or cuts in a certain time to kind of get the best quality and no second cuts and things, understanding how how they can maximize the potential for their wool and actually slight uneasiness kind of crept into all of us thinking, right, we could maybe get British wool into this fashion system, but how long is it going to be there? Is it just going to be a trend when actually starting to work with smaller independent designers that have got that agility? They're kind of they want to know and they know that their consumers want to know the story behind it as well. They want to invest in a quality product and they will invest and a higher purchase price because they know the value of it. They know that it's going to be a timeless piece that's going to last them 50, 60, 70 plus years in really great condition. And rather than kind of convincing them to buy and buy and buy more season upon season and not going to live on to the next question is obviously, you know, a large part of what you're doing is connecting the farm, the wool supply chain, so the farmers and the manufacturers to the brands. Have you found that brands and manufacturers have been quite keen to get involved? It's been a good response from them. They they want to make more ethical decisions regarding their wool. I think the right brands are, and I think there's definitely more engagement between a lot of different brands. They they definitely want to know more. I think the way that more conventional brands are set up or slightly bigger brands as set up doesn't really give them the leeway to think about things. When you're in a hierarchy of actually the design team is completely separate to the marketing team. It is completely separate to the finance team is really, really hard to get everyone play in the same game and for the long run. But at the same time there's been a lot of really good talks. Fingers crossed does seem to be the actually the consumers. And when consumers do start talking with the products that they buy, I mean, brands have to follow. It might be a really small kind of turning point and slow turning point for some. But there is definitely the passion is definitely kind of the market there for it. Sorry, Maria, I know you were going to talk then. No, no, that's that's great. Yeah. I was just going to say about the manufacture, I think because a lot of the UK manufacturers, they just work with a grade of wool rather than on, you know, a breed specific wool. Right. It has been quite tricky for them getting used to working with a different staple length or you know, like Hardwicke has just has a mind of its own. The sheep doing the wool does is kind of all over the place and it's quite tricky to actually spin, but the manufacturers have all been fantastic that we work with and very supportive of what we're doing, even though we might be tiny customers to them. So putting them on film. So when we got our wool was for example, there's only two wool scouring plants in the whole of Europe. No, come from Bradford. The one that we use is minimum 500 kilos and for us 500 kilos is a lot of wool. But for them I think they'd much rather it was like a five you know, like Yeah. They were five tonnes as they were intending to looks and that. Yeah. So, so they don't really like it or they don't really like dealing with such tiny amounts. But anyway they do it and that's brilliant. So it just means that by scaling up to that level then we can keep our costs a little bit lower. So there's lots of kind of smaller spinning mills that are maybe more for hand-knitted yarn, which we use as well. And you know, part of our business is selling hand-knitted yarn, so we've just been to a few yarn shows, one in Perth, the Scottish Yarn Fest and also Yarn Dale in which is held at Skipton Auction Mart. And that's great because on both occasions we were asked to give a talk about what we do at the Mill library. So a lot of what the wool like is I feel anyway and I know that Zoe does, is that it's quite educational and that's what we're, we're keen to give talks and we also gave a talk at Groundswell this year and which is another great think is a great agricultural show. Yeah. So yeah, we were talking about wool and this is quite amazing. So even talking to people who net and love Woolen are real experts, but what we said really I don't know they found so interesting it's things aren't really thought about the breed specific rule and actually not just squishing wool and thinking that soft and I like the color or buy it but turning the turning the package over and looking at where the wool is produced, what kind of wool is and you know, those sorts of things that we've kind of gotten used to in our food system. But it's not quite happening yet within fashion and within textiles, and that really would be fantastic to see it moving along those same lines where people actually think about what they're waiting on their backs. And it'd be nice to see more farmers waiting their own flocks. Yeah, I think that's right. I'm chair of the Rare Breed Survival Trust on quite a few. So breed society committees and things and it absolutely does. My know they all have plastic ties and plastic places and synthetic wool you know products and like if you, if you are, you know, promoting your breed, then why are you using a plastic tie, you know, like a nylon trying to as your bedside to advertise it. So anyway, the northowram contribute basis. I've actually made it simply at wool break time out, which is absolutely amazing. I've I've seen these on the on the show circuit are they green. They're really good yeah and you know everybody's really proud to wear them and you never see a plastic like a nylon. Well now it's very, very rare yet lots of other great societies still get the generic sort of nylon time with the with a, with a logo on it. And I just think it's really sad that they don't actually promote their own braid. And I hope with the rare breed survival trust, we're just in a bubble. Have made it not so easy. And being a baby was a baby. It's fashion excitable. Yeah, yeah, baby made out of Tesla and pretty fast less well and it's a little bit more expensive then they they all nylon but you know, it actually looks classy and it looks good and you know we've got people are even interested in rare breeds buying them, you know, because it looks nice and it's made from specifically wools. And when we first started charging for wool bags and going to the to our premises and just a silly set, everything's done as a great rather than be specific and you mixing lots of different breeds in the same class and actually you know said to them, look, you could be losing the value here because you know the rarer grades and people really want them because it's, it's like fine wine or, you know, so specific whiskeys from that people won't notice something. That's a big difference. And the story behind it was I have actually saw a change in that where they grabbed the wool and actually keeping so and breed specific lots which you know is fantastic. And again it's a to them because they're trying to get their creators to change how they've done it. So yes but it's now, you know, selling our products and it all gets homogenized when it goes into the market, all in the fashion industry, right. Yeah. Everybody you a to the story about, you know, the specific brands or you know so many selling meat wool or whatever. Yeah. Keep an upgraded identity I'm finding a lot of people say talk about niche breeds and then talk about commercial breeds but anything is commercial. It's just the way you sell it and manage it. You know, the fact that some people think, you know, there's a difference between a commercial animal and a rare animal, It's just that it's just it's just a fallacy, really. It's just how we market it and what strength you saw. You know, an actual rare animal can be really, really commercial because it's got a unique selling point. And obviously we've got so many sheep breeds here in the UK. I'm guessing that not every type of every breed of sheep they're wool won't be good for every job. So are there certain breeds which are more suited to certain products and different types of clothing or. Hmm, it definitely it depends. It's definitely dependent on the end use. I mean, kind of the staple length dictates whether it can be wool and spun or worsted spun. So wool and spun will give you kind of an area yarn that will fill out, whereas a worsted spun one you can spin finer is almost kind of like there's an added process into it. So it combs fibers and a bit like kind of combing your hair. And so they're a little bit more aligned so you can use that in more and fine tweeds, or if it's for knitting yarns, it allows and allows you to twist it a little bit more so you get more stitch definition. So understanding those qualities and understanding how the different breeds affect that and yarn kind of starts, starts to kind of really challenge, but open up so many opportunities and it's not about kind of trying to force Herdwick to become a beautiful drapey yarn, which it's never going to be, but actually understanding that using a herdwick and yarn Fall and Tweed or Rustic are in jumper would actually keep you far warmer out on the hills. Walk in then use in blue face Leicester for example. And so yeah it's not about kind of it's it's about understanding the opportunities for a lot of different ones and not just kind of sandwich it into the current rhetoric of well it's just all British royals just use carpets when actually we can produce and gain far more value from having a lot of different chains and a lot of different avenues for all those different breeds and the potential for them rather than just shoving it into a homogenized global commodity. I also think, you know, I know when when when you know, you're in a shop and you watched people touching knitwear, not some weird stalker, but you see them and they just they just feel it and they think all that soft. But actually, you know, like a cashmere jumper is soft, but, you know, it's a bit shapeless and and a severe jumper or something with more bulk to it and keeps that shape a lot better. And, you know, I think it's just education and it is similar to what John said earlier about whiskey. You know, you can get a whiskey blend and it's smooth and you drink that. But actually whiskey connoisseurs want more complex flavors, which you know they will. So then they'll want a single malt. And that's a for me, I think it's quite like that with wool. And yeah, you can go for super soft, but it doesn't maybe give you everything that you need. And if you want stitch definition in your garment or you want it to stay in a particular kind of shape, then you use different wool, as we said, and blue face Leicester is a is our equivalent of merino. But any farmer will know that, you know certain places in the country you can keep them. But it's quite hard up here. They are a great improver. So we keep them cross some of the cheviots, but they're great improver in terms of animals, but also in terms of the wool quality. So the blue face Leicester Cross Cheviots that we have got amazing wool and that's like we made some wool last year for and August knitwear and that was Hebridean cross with blue face Leicester and it was incredible the wool, it was really soft and she made these amazing ponchos from that yarn. And so it can be added to something like a hill breed because Leicester can be added something like a heel grid and really change that characteristic from it being a quite a harsh wool to being something quite luxury and without using loads of it because there's just not that many blackface Lesters in the in the country really. It's quite interesting since Maria and so we have been talking about the different worlds, like if you went back a century or so, Lincoln long walls and things like this Cotswolds, were there a backbone of the British wool industry. But the all of the really long staples and the modern machines that modern spin is not can't deal with it. So they have Kendall and Chuck in it all so they can because you used to work in such a short stepped legs compared to these long wool braids and, you know, the blue faced Leicester, which sort of got less wool, you know, if you get came off the blue first Leicester you doing very, very well whereas the tees lost at Lincoln they've got like seven seven casuals. And so you know it's it's still anything with blue close Leicester you're never going to get a lot. But as Maria said if you get a cashmere jumper you look at it anywhere else a few times a year because it's so delicate on the level. But then if you get something made out of a hillbilly dollar tribute, you know, something like that, it lasts forever. It makes really, really tough. Yeah, it's almost like the sheep. When I'm explaining to farmers, like lots of farmers, as Maria said, came up to me and said, Oh, we'll take our well, you know, we really want to sell our wool. And then I'd love to see what we got. Tell me the breeds and I said, Well, you know, looks not just suitable for what we're doing at the moment. When I said, Oh, it's wool, but I said like if you got a cheese or if I suggested it's like a piece of string, basically it's just completely flat and has no bounce to it. When you get a hold of a piece, it should be it will a Cotswold Wool or something like that. It's like really, really bouncy and bulky and the use of completely different things. And again, it's sort of educating the farmers to look after the wool. So I said, you know, keep it clean, don't put lots of we'll keep it in our bits of straw, all the things I like because it costs a lot of money to get out at the other end. And so if people look after their will and keep it clean and put the same bread in the bag rather than mixing ten different bags in one bag, and then they'll get more for the wool, it's just because the price is so little, people just don't care about it. Yeah, and I think it's going back to the education piece, isn't it, that a lot of people won't necessarily think about the wool or where it comes from or how it's made? You know what I'm saying here with a well I think is a wool john from but I couldn't tell you what you know if it's British it's wrong, which is really bad really. And we've got a really valuable wool product in this country which you know, do we have quite good qualities in terms of how you can use the wall and its sustainability compared to other countries? Yeah, I think well, in the 1980s I was reading something from the British Rule board and in the 1950s the average price a farmer would get for their wool was the equivalent of £14 a kilo, which is, you know, it blew my mind. 50% of British rule at that time was being made into apparel. So our wool, some of our rules are absolutely suitable for clothing, but we've just gotten so used to merino wool coming in, it is soft and is produced in massive quantities which for brands that, you know, sell in that bulk way. That's what they want. But yeah, I think I've lost the track now because Jones has written something one of piece. Yes. So so yeah but I think we can and actually British rule said that if every person in the UK bought one small item of wool, maybe a half or a pair of socks made from British rule, that would use the whole of the British rule, click Wow. Which you know, so all could stay in this country. You know, if you bought a wool carpet that's like ten years worth of your and so I think you know and that would help UK manufacturing as well, wouldn't it? So that would be great to see more scouring plants, more spinners, more weavers in the country. I would love to see that. So it's definitely possible. But at the moment, Woolies in terms of global textiles, wool is only 1% of all the textiles produced. Wow. In the world it's tiny, it's all synthetic. I mean, you just look at everything, you look at your sofa, you look at your duvet, you know, we've got some wool duvets and a few feather ones, but most of them are synthetic and yeah, in your house, your curtains, things like that, there's so much that's just throw away. Wow. And then you, you change your color scheme and you chuck it rather than, you know, curtains being handed down and changing size or becoming something else. So but I think yeah, when you care about something and when you've got a short supply chain, like our supply chain is really short so that, you know, we buy the wool from farmers that we know has created a British rule in Bradford, it's washed in Bradford, it spun in Huddersfield, died in Huddersfield and we use a weaver in Oldham. So we know all these people meet, we visit them. We know that, you know, we know our whole supply chain from the farmer, the sheep all the way through. When you've got a really long supply chain, it's easy to ignore, you know, aspects of that supply chain in terms of animal welfare, in terms of workers welfare and and that that's what keeps source prices low is that you can ignore those things and just think, oh yeah, that's a, that's a £1.50 t shirt that's really cheap. I'm not saying why is it £1.50. It gives you a little bit of responsibility, doesn't it. As soon as you kind of, you know, the people that it's affecting along that journey, actually you feel responsible then for not just looking after your clothing more, but well, how do I wash it? How do I throw it away? Who has kind of been affected by the working conditions for it that kind of you start to join up all those dots and like Maria said, that kind of complexity and diluting it and it's being made offshore. You never get to see the faces behind it. You don't get to kind of it's very, very easy to disregard how much they're getting paid and say, well, it's they're they're getting paid the minimum and that kind of country's minimum wage. Well, that country's minimum wage is 12 points. That doesn't mean that that government's kind of doing the right things. But by being able to kind of bring it back here, actually, a lot of people kind of ask us whether we get frustrated that we wait in a long time for other things to be processed and done. But actually, it's amazing that more and more people and more and more brands and more and more people working with will do want to use British manufacture. And I think the more that it comes down to kind of us all aligning the consumers values and I think I mean we come up against it so many times. Maybury And John, about kind of the labeling system and you can still call some thin 100% British wool. If it contains the Royal British wool, it can go offshore to have all those processes done, come back and can still be labeled. And I think as a consumer you want to enjoy buying something, don't you? You want to kind of engage in that. The buying and process. It's an experience and having something labeled as 100% British wool is great, but everything behind that might not quite be made in the way the label suggests. Yeah, I think that. But that having a small supply chain that's really valuable and that's what that's what it's all about. And going back to that responsibility and who's involved in the supply chain and this is maybe a question more for yourself, John, as chairman of the Rabbit Survival Trust. So how do you sort of envisage that the work you're doing with the wool library can help support these breeds? Because a lot of the breeds, you know, they'll be producing you wool, native or rare breed minority breeds in this country. So. So how can this work, help support the breeds and their farmers? Well, I think in lots of different ways. But let mainly through the advocacy work we doing, actually getting people to realize that a lot of stuff is mislabeled or con, you know, like calling a wool, a merino wool Shetland type. And so people think to buy in Shetland. Well actually it's merino wool, it's called just it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a beige color. So all those sort of things about the false labeling and misrepresentation, but also educating British wool, you know, there are people wanting breed specific wolves and rather than just having all slotted into different grids, that every really is the fashion world is changing and the world is changing and people are wanting to know where this stuff comes from and what it is. And, you know, and then with the breed societies actually getting them to realize, you know, what they've got and, and that if it's marketed right, then they can actually make a lot more money from that wool like a lot of them do it in a small way themselves. So it so sell to people. I count spinning off or crocheting and things like that but it's a it's a very, very small craft industry and it's then moving on to the next stage and actually making it a bigger part of the bigger industry. Yes, we're working with them to we're making to breed specific. We've got to breed specific projects that moment. So one is Cheviot, and that's working with a single farm up in Scotland in the Highlands and Armadale Farm, which is run by Joyce Campbell, who is a farmer that we love. And so we buy her hog wool and we've just made some tweed throws and some tweed, and that those designs are based on the landscape that she farms up there in Scotland. And we're also we also worked with the Portland Breed Society and un-British. We were very good at gathering from, I think, 17 different sites, all the different Portland that was within this project to make I think almost a tonne or just over a tonne of Portland wool, which we're just having processed at the moment. So we'll be making knitting yarn tweed and throws out of that will as well. And those designs, some from the Portland Breed Society and worked on them just using colors from the landscape around that area. So that's quite exciting and hopefully that will sort of celebrate these breeds, demonstrate what's possible with them, because I think it's always a case of when you're quite small and a lot of Portland breeders maybe have small flocks, it's not it doesn't feel worth it to them to send British Royal because they get so little and they don't know what happens to it. Just become that might end up carpet on a cruise ship. Who knows where it is actually doing. They want something to be done with it. And so doing this specific thing, I think all of those in the Portland society, I hope they make ties out of the Tweed. I hope they buy the straws and they can be really proud that their wounds gone into something that has retained that story of the beads. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. And so in the and, and in meetings and stuff where I'm quite often the only bloke fits feel a bit lost was something that struck me the other day. We're talking about, you know, when to open. Still saw a synthetic nylon so clothing came out and paid for. All of this is easy to wash. It dries quickly. It's you know this is a free future, but open for bed. Everybody had bought the staples that they lost so they would have a nice jacket and a pair of trousers and perhaps a suit in wool. And those would match with lots of different things. But those items would last your whole lifetime. All your personal guarantee, children, if you grew out, them or whatever, and you know, they they were lost in a hundred years or more. And now with fashion, you know, I talked to some of my nieces and nephews and stuff, and they buy an outfit to go out and then it's thrown away, you know, oh, we can't wear it again. You know, it's you know, and it's just we've lost something. So, yeah, I think actually I did a I just think that and I thought actually it's satellite relationships, isn't it? So when you buy something that you kind of have, there's a bit of emotion when you buy it because you're hearing about the story, it means something. You have a relationship with it. So I like a long term thing and you look at it, it and you know, this this sort of fast fashion is more like a one night stand. And, you know, you just doesn't mean anything to you because, you know, you've just it's like just investing my time. Yeah. And you can just chuck it and have no sort of feeling for for chucking it. Whereas if you've cared about something, you know, you know where the wolves come from, you know who's made it. You just treasure and look after it differently. And it's, you know, that kind of disconnect. You see it with, you know, you kind of notice during lockdown. That's kind of the actually we do need each other and that is good for our mental health. And I think it is also good for our mental health to know where our food comes from and to know what we're wearing and connecting back to those things just gives you more sort of just a bit more joy. You know, I feel joy when I put on a coat made from my sheet Will every time I put on and just for even for a moment thinking that's my sheep. Yeah, that's definitely no, it's I think fashion changes so quickly as well, like trends and everyone's trying to keep up with the next trend where it's about again, back to education and maybe change people's perspectives on actually maybe spend a bit more on something that you can keep for a lot longer and, and can be more of a valued piece within their wardrobe. And just on that, if you know, if we can help that education side of things and piece it all together. Do you think that the wool industry could provide, you know, an opportunity for native and rare breeds to help preserve and and promote them within agriculture? Yeah, definitely. I think there's you know, there's loads of breeds that see with a certain brand. So almost like the breeds could become brand ambassadors for Yes. Specific brands So you know maybe like so much of the sort of leisure clothing is that that's but I know that there's brands that are doing work and to how to develop wool leggings that kind of thing. But then certain breeds that could really tap into the stories of their and that could really align with their what they're selling basically, rather than just getting into celebrity or whatever. And I think like, you know, people like me and I say, well, you know, that the people go out walking in the mountains and they're all wearing oil based clothing and, you know, all wouldn't we wouldn't wear it. We would look like, you know, tough, sell something, but then you could use that same product in a different style and design and it works. It would actually be attractive to those, you know, people that come from the city and like to spend time in the country. It's just we're stuck in, you know, that. Oh let's trade has to be in a certain style and it has to be a show that continues to be good. But actually, if we did it in a slightly different way and different colors and different designs, then, you know, people would wear it. And I see so many farmers wearing sort of synthetics, you know, in New Zealand, Australian based clothing company beside the World, it's made out of oil based products and yet and you know moaning about the pricy wool, you know, it's just it just doesn't really it's about utilizing it to its potential as well. Like how great would it be to kind of celebrate all those kind of the rarer breeds with a smaller quantities, using it as kind of a limited edition. And then there's plenty of breeds like kind of the cheaper and things that could be scalable. So a brand that wants maybe 50 to 100 jumpers a season and can really kind of tap into that story and narrative of a rare breed, whereas actually a more kind of a company that would want a thousand, 2000, 5000 jumpers actually needs to kind of understand the amount and quantity available. And but that's the kind of beauty of British wool, the so many different breeds. And like John and Maria were saying, tapping into kind of those narratives and the different qualities that are available across the country, there's so much opportunity for them. And I mean, it's amazing just listening to you all talking today. I mean, I think we could talk about this forever. It's so interesting. And there's a lot of parts to this that people will think about. Well, understand. And it goes back to the education and getting people to understand how valuable British wool is and how we can utilize it in different ways and support our farmers and our sheep industry. Ultimately. So if anybody who's who is listening today, whether that be a brand or farmers in particular, how what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you and get involved in this? I guess just through our website, the Rule Library dot UK. And from there you can see what we're what we're doing, the kind of products that we're making. And just email us or email us or message us through Instagram, the Wool Library, Dot UK and we can just top from there. Bob Well, thank you to all of you for coming in and speaking with us today. It's been so amazing to hear your stories and what you try to achieve, and I think everyone will agree that it's really important what you do in and around this area of our sheep industry needs a lot more support. So thank you very much. It's been pretty and speaking to you. Thanks for listening to everyone. It sounds like this could be a really beneficial initiative to a lot of farmers out there. Katie, do you want to let people know how they can find out more information? Yeah, I think it's the Wool Library's a really great initiative that they've set up and hopefully, as you say, more farmers will get involved and more brands and people involved in the in the wool industry and will also get involved. So if you want to find out more, check out the social media and website links in the podcast description. That's great. Thanks, Katie. That's it for Moz at Farmer's. Got you. Next week. We'll be back again with a brand new episode next week. Bye for now.