8. Dutch Wool Studio Visit

So few people in Ireland and the UK are playing around with and exploring uses for raw wool. The process of scouring, carding, spinning, dying and weaving wool is labour intensive, time consuming and skill heavy, but the end product is beautiful. However it is the raw wool, straight off the sheep that is my fascination. It’s so beautiful, with different colours, textures, and feel depending on where it grew on the body. It is a marvel to see these gentle little animals with their sweet faces and happy little way of life grow a brand new winter coat each year. If left to their own devices the fleeces usually shed somewhat themselves, but the sheep look awful, scraggy and scruffy, plus we lose the benefit of the wool which is so versatile.

Choosing fleeces to work with - various native Dutch and Scandinavian breeds and colours

When researching textile artists who are interested in working with the raw wool and not dying it, I found there are quite a few in The Netherlands. I visited one workshop where the artist buys wool locally and produces beautiful no-skin rugs from native Dutch sheep.

I have no issue with sheepskins being used when sheep come to the end of their natural lives, as I would prefer to see all elements utilised and not wasted, however I like the idea of harvesting wool from my sheep each year without using their skin. It’s such a fantastic renewable product that grows in abundance and I love working with it. Sheepskin production involves very toxic chemicals and unpalatable practices that has conveniently disappeared from most western countries, now being based in poor, less developed countries where labour practices and safety of workers are not held in high regard. Working with raw wool fleeces, shorn for animal welfare reasons, from healthy sheep, and using only natural olive oil soap, water, and the properties of the wool itself, is a very ethical, sustainable and ecological process that creates beautiful, strong, long-lasting textiles.

When I was at school, we were taught all about The Netherlands and it’s intensive methods of farming. They were, in the 1980’s held up as the modern example for all to follow - using every single cm of land, removing ditches, hedges and verges, farming to the very edge of roadways etc. It was seen as progressive, efficient and the height of productivity. However, a few decades on the benefits of leaving wildlife corridors, water courses, hedges and ditches are clear to see, offering shelter and biodiversity to our landscapes.

Dutch fields with irrigation channels

Flying over the English Channel, the landscape of The Netherlands was visible quickly, and the gridlike layout of fields from reclaimed land with irrigitation channels is hugely different to the Irish landscape, which rises and falls with the hills and valleys. There has been a re-introduction of verges, hedges and tree lines along irrigation waterways and canals, with greening the landscape beyond productive areas now taken as essential.

18th Century farm buildings in rural Utrecht

Rural Utrecht is beautiful and peaceful, in the middle of which I was based for a few days, on a horse-rescue foundation where the 1700’s timber barns are used for artists studios. Here I worked with Gotland, Skudde, and Drenthe fleeces from small native sheep not unlike my own.

1700’s barns used for artists studios in rural Utrecht, The Netherlands

It was a fantastic experience, and Babette was able to communicate her values and opinions about sheep wool very articulately. It was great to meet a group of people who have the same interests and passions about the potential of the raw material, who are experimenting in different ways to utilise the wool fleeces and avoid them going to waste.

Working with raw Skudde sheep fleece to create no-skin raw wool rug

Fleece no-skin rug back at the studio