Voices in Wool features conversations with people around the world whose lives touch, and are touched by, wool. Hosted by New York Times-bestselling author Clara Parkes and made possible by members of The Wool Channel.
Shop to Sheep to Skein to School: Anna Hunter's Canadian Wool Odyssey
In this episode, Clara talks with Canadian wool advocate, fiber farmer, and mill owner Anna Hunter of Long Way Homestead. Until a few years ago, Anna was happily ensconced in East Vancouver running a yarn store. But in 2015, the country beckoned. She and her husband Luke moved to Eastern Manitoba to start a family and a farm. When she discovered there was no local mill to process her freshly shorn Shetland fleeces, she decided to build a mill herself. Now Anna is sharing everything she ...
14 Jan 2022
From Broadway Divas to Shameless Escape Artists: Shepherds and their Favorite Sheep
It takes a special kind of person to choose a life with sheep. It's not easy. It's not glamorous. It's not the kind of career path that comes with stock options or a private jet. It comes with something even better: Sheep. Spend any significant amount of time with sheep and you're bound to form friendships, attachments, connections. In this episode, we hear stories about favorite sheep. Whether they're from a shepherd or a daughter of a shepherd, the stories run the gamut—from a little l...
14 Oct 2021
Autumn on the Hudson: Clara Reads from Knitlandia
In honor of this being New York Sheep and Wool Festival weekend in Rhinebeck, New York, this episode's voice in wool is Clara herself. So make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy story time as she reads the New York Sheep and Wool Festival chapter from her New York Times bestseller, Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World. This is a special Voices in Wool episode intended for members of The Wool Channel. Click here to join the party. For copyright reasons, I regret that there is no audio transcri...
30 Sept 2021
Healing the Planet One Wool Sponge at a Time: A Conversation with Marie Hoff
What could washing your breakfast dishes and preventing wildfires possibly have in common? Marie Hoff may be able to help with that question. In 2013, she took on a small flock of ouessant sheep and launched Cappella Grazing in Sonoma County. Her clients were mainly vineyards, orchards, farms, and private land owners who wanted a quieter, more efficient form of a lawnmower. But it soon became apparent that her flock was serving another more urgent need: reducing fuel loads to prevent wildfire...
24 Aug 2021
She Tortures Wool for a Living: Meet the Woman Helping Revive Commercial Wool Testing in the US
In 2020, the American wool industry lost an extremely important link in its production chain when the Yocom-McColl wool testing lab closed. That lab had been in operation for more than 50 years. And by the time it closed, it was our only remaining commercial wool testing lab in the country. Why does this matter? Because any kind of trade, whether it’s buying or selling of wool, requires accurate commercial measurements to know what you’re buying or selling. Testing for things like...
15 Jul 2021
Lior Patel: The Drone Photographer who Spied on Sheep from Above
Today's voice in wool never set out to be a voice in wool. In fact, he doesn't say a word about wool at all. His interest—and quite an infectious one at that—is in the sheep themselves, how they move and navigate both the natural terrain and one another. In this episode, Clara talks with Lior Patel, a 42-year-old professional drone photographer from Haifa, Israel, who spent seven months observing a megaflock of more than 1,000 sheep from the sky. His time-lapse video of the flock in motion, ...
24 Jun 2021
The Swiss Shepherdess on Living a Good Life, Taking Great Leaps, and What We can Learn from Goats
Swiss sheep aren't known for their wool. But they still play a vital role in the Alpine ecosystem: that of agile and incredibly efficient lawnmowers. Which is exactly why Claire Jeannerat and her husband Damien began farming in 2014. From their farm in Crans Montana, they raise rare and indigenous breeds of sheep and goats that are highly adapted to the Alpine environment. On any given day, the animals can be found nibbling everywhere from grassy pastures and the occasional neighbor's garde...
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