Women Behind Wool is a podcast about the women of the Australian Merino Wool Industry.
Join your hosts Skye Manson and Lady Kate Knitwear's Penny Ashby as they introduce you to CEO's, researchers, TV hosts, shearers and shed hands alongside those who're cooking, cleaning, mustering, drenching and helping to bring up the next generation of wool growers in our country.
Sorry guys, we've been a bit MIA but we are here now to round out the 2022 season of Women Behind Wool and to say a big fat thank you for listening and supporting this project of ours.
In this chat we revisit what's been achieved to-date and get excited about what's to come in 2023.
While we wait for 2023 to roll around please stay in touch via @womenbehindwool on Instagram where we are planning some lovely features in the coming months. And as always we would love feedback on what you're loving (or not) and your fabulous guest suggestions for the next season of Women Behind Wool.
14 Jun 2022
Innovation in wool fabrics with Woolmark's Julie Davies
This week our guest is Julie Davies, General Manager for process innovation and education extension at the Woolmark Company.
Her work is largely involved in product development and also education, mostly of people along the supply chain, so the likes of garment manufacturers, textile dyers and developers and the like.
Julie’s perspective on wool is quite different from any other we have profiled on Women Behind Wool.
She's been based in Sydney all her life and never really had much connection to the process of growing wool but she’s one of the best when it comes to knowing how to get the most out of wool as a natural fibre.
We love that she has always had a love for textiles and making clothes and that through years of professional development, she really is at the top of her game in the field of using wool in innovative new fabrics and textiles.
8 Jun 2022
The women behind the Haddon Rig merino empire
Today we interview Sally and Olivia Falkiner from Haddon Rig merino stud near Warren in central west NSW. Sally met her husband George Falkiner at Haddon Rig as a backpacker and never left. Sally and George were married and had four daughters and so this story is all about these women have worked tirelessly as a part of the Haddon Rig empire for years gone by and (hopefully) many more years to come.
31 May 2022
Kristen Frost: 5th generation stud breeder, 1st generation wool writer
Visit the sheep pavilion at any local show around Australia and there’s a fair chance the punters know Kristen Frost (nee Williams) of Thalabah Stud at Laggan on the NSW southern tablelands. If it’s not for her work re-birthing the family’s stud operation, then chances are they’ve read her articles as the national sheep and wool writer in the The Land newspaper.
“I’m a fifth generation woolgrower and a first generation national sheep and wool writer,” says Kristen with a smile. Each is of equal importance to her and they complement each other in a rare way. “It’s what makes my life a bit special ... Being a writer really, really helps me understand my business.”
24 May 2022
Shearer Emma Billett used to be the only female in the shearing shed, but now that's changing
Emma Billett is a 32 year old shearer from central west New South Wales. She never intended to be a shearer but found she loved the atmosphere and the physicality of working in the shearing shed on her family's farm near Nevertire. One day, a colleague asked if she wanted to give shearing a go and Emma has been shearing ever since.
Emma tells Skye about a time when there were no other women in the sheds, and how she's seen that change in recent years, a wonderful thing, she says.
17 May 2022
Vanessa Bell on what fresh eyes can achieve for Merino wool
Vanessa Bell is the founder of Vanessa Bell baby blankets, bespoke 100 Australian Merino Wool baby blankets, knitted with care over 3 months by an expert team of hand knitters. Vanessa's blankets are one-off pieces that have been sold all over the world.
Vanessa didn't grow up on a Merino farm, in fact she came to love wool as a catwalk model at age 15. She's a wool farmer now, but Ness is a great example of the passion, pride and ingenuity that can happen when fresh eyes are cast on an age-old industry. In the future, she's determined to bring wool scouring back to Australia and to knit blankets using Merino wool from her own flock, in order to discover a true farmer to fashion product.
10 May 2022
Author and Merino farmer Maggie MacKellar uses beautiful writing to educate the masses
Maggie MacKellar is an author and writer who lives with her partner Jim on a fine wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania. As a child she used to love spending time on her grandparents sheep farm in central west NSW but they were vastly different sheep, they were Dorsets, Poll Dorsets and Black Faced Suffolks.
When Maggie moved to Tasmania 10 years ago, she fell in love with the curious ways of the Merino sheep. She made it her mission to take time to watch their temperament, they way they ate, mothered and many other intricate details of the Merino sheep - and then she would write about her observations.
In recent time Maggie has written numerous columns for lifestyle magazines, Graziher and Country Style, detailing in beautiful words a day in her life as a fine wool farmer and in 2023 she will be releasing her latest book, The Lambing Diaries.
3 May 2022
Australia's #1 female shearer Cathy Wendelborn
Cathy Wendelborn is arguably the best female shearer to have existed in the world. This year she was the first female to be inducted into Australia’s Shearing Hall of Fame.
Cathy was a self-taught shed and competition shearer who shore sheep in all Australian states (except NT) for 21 years.
She used competition shearing as a way to improve her style and skills. In those competitions she came second a number of times and often she won, much to the disgust of the boys.
In 1988 for the Australian Bicentenary she was invited to shear in front of the Queen – where she presented her royal highness with a staple of wool.
This is her story.....
See more at www.womenbehindwool.com.au or @womenbehindwool
This is a production of the Manson Podcasting Network.
26 Apr 2022
Women Behind Wool founders Penny Ashby and Skye Manson
Meet the women behind Women Behind Wool, Skye Manson of the Manson Podcasting Network and Penny Ashby, designer and founder of Lady Kate which sells beautiful jumpers made of 100% Australian merino wool. Both of these women, who are the greatest of friends, grew up on fine wool farms in the southern tablelands of New South Wales and have a love of Australian wool sewn into their hearts. In our first episode for 2022, Penny and Skye flip the mic on each other so that you can learn more about their own journey's in the Australian wool industry.
Over the next eight weeks we will be bringing you the stories of impressive women working, living and breathing the Australian merino wool industry.
Over the next eight weeks we will be bringing you the stories of impressive women working, living and breathing the Australian merino wool industry.
Subscribe to this podcast and each Wednesday morning at 6am we'll introduce you to a new fabulous women in the wool industry each week.
You can see the women in some beautiful imagery on @womenbehindwool on Instagram as well as on our website www.womenbehindwool.com.au
Explore more podcasts from the Manson Podcasting Network on Apple Podcasts or @mansonpodcasting on Instagram.
Explore Lady Kate's 100% merino wool jumpers, socks and scarves at @ladykateknitware on Instagram.
4 Jul 2021
Pip Smith's wool and the farm to fabric cycle
Pip Smith and her husband Norm run a holistic fine merino operation near Wellington in NSW and they absolutely love the fibre they produce, they believe in their wool and are proud of how they manage their farm to get the best for their animals.
These guys are holistic farmers, who don’t mules their sheep, the use SRS techniques and don’t mules their sheep and after many conversations, trips overseas, research and testing, Pip Smith has been able to not only sell their wool directly to a processor in China, but they also receive a portion of that processed wool back to their farm, which Pip then has turned into scarves, baby wraps, beanies and so on.
The path to get to this point was long, and with many hurdles, but now that Pip has broken the back of the system, she’s happy to share her contacts, her learnings and to generally help anyone else who’s interested.
27 Jun 2021
Australia's first professional wool classer Anne Cooper
Anne Cooper believes she was the first professional female wool classer to work in shearing sheds along the eastern seaboard of Australia. As she recounts her story with Skye, she recalls how disruptive it was to have a women in charge of the shearing shed in this time. Shearing contractors and farmers were so put out that Union meetings were called about the issue and in some cases Anne was asked to provided written reports on her wool classing (a requirement that was never required prior) Can you image what that would have been like?! Find out here today.
20 Jun 2021
Kelly Dowling is a woman of all trades when it comes to wool
There isn't much in sheep and wool production that this woman can't do! Kelly Dowling runs a 30,000 head superfine merino wool operation in partnership with her Mum, Dad and Brother at Dalton near Gunning in the NSW southern tablelands. Not only is Kelly a classic no-fuss high achiever - she's is in charge of all the wool classing, all stages of sheep husbandry, genetics, general maintenance, book keeping, cooking, being a mother and a bit of advocacy when she can - but we also love that she's never been fussed about feminism and perhaps that's why she's achieved so much as a #womanbehindwool.
Because Kelly has had a hand in so many facets of wool production – there is no better person – to answer your questions. Thank you to those of your who reached out on Instagram, Kelly will answer your questions in the second part of this podcast.
6 Jun 2021
Jess Webb has done the numbers and wool's future looks brightest
Before buying her familys farm near Uralla, Jess and her husband crunched the numbers and found that wool had the most exciting and financially beneficial future. They did not get into wool for emotional reasons, but because its future was the most viable of any sutiable agricultural pursuit in their part of Australia.
We love Jess Webb's story because it is reflective of so many everyday women working on wool farms, she's a mum to two young children, she makes business decisions and is a representitive on three Boards including the locally run Fleece to Fashion organisation.
Ticket sales for Fleece to Fashion, 10 & 11 September 2021 go on sale in June. Find out more information here.
30 May 2021
Joanne Howarth's innovative wool packaging for the food industry
In a former life, Joanne Howarth, the now CEO of Planet Protector Packaging used so much polystyrene packing she felt like she was single handedly destroying the planet. She set about finding an alternative for food packing in Australian, preferably one that was natural. After researching all sorts of fibres including cotton trash and coconut hemp, she was blown away by the thermal properties of wool. Now she’s on a mission to replace polystyrene with wool. We delight in Joanne’s story because she’s a city girl, who had no idea or emotional attachment to wool and is now its biggest convert. She has a dogged determination to tell the world about wool’s sustainability attributes, its incredible insulation capabilities not to mention its ability to be 100% biodegradable.
If you are interested in Joanne's Ewe Beauty campaign - calling on all Australian's to get behind this push to bring wool processing back to Australian shores. You can find more information here.
23 May 2021
Dr Meredith Sheil should be in the Wool Industry Hall of Fame
You may not know Paediatrician, Dr Meredith Sheil but she should be a household name in the Australian wool industry. Dr Sheil is the inventor of TriSolfen, the topical anaesthetic and antiseptic solution used on lambs at lamb marking in a huge number of Australian sheep farms. What this woman has achieved is perhaps the biggest animal health innovation in the wool industry ever and we think we should all know more about her story.
16 May 2021
Catriona Rowntree is wool's best PR agent
Catriona Rowntree doesn’t have a background in the wool industry but has a genuine love for the fibre and her enthusiasm for wool is endless. So much so that after seeing a daggy TV story on the wool industry, she was compelled to call Australian Wool Innovation and offer her services to help promote wool. She's now been an ambassador for AWI for more than 10 years.
9 May 2021
Three generations of women on one farm
Hidden away in the hills of southern New South Wales near Bookham, is a female farming operation to behold. At 'Kingslea' three generations of women from the Spittle family are working to keep the family's longstanding wool farming dream alive.
Caroline Spittle is in charge, at the age of 87, alongside her daughter Rosie Mitchell, with the occasional helping hand from her grand-daughter, Atty Mitchell who is also an International catwalk model.
29 Apr 2021
What is Women Behind Wool?
Welcome to Women Behind Wool an initiative shining a light on the female faces of the Australian Wool Industry.
Hosted by Lady Kate Knitware's Penny Ashby and podcaster Skye Manson this podcast and short film series tells you the stories of women achieving great things in wool. You will meet women supporting the next generation of wool growers while also making their businesses more sustainable and innovative, as well as CEO's, models, TV hosts, ground breaking researchers and more.
womenbehindwool.com.au
Contact Women Behind Wool
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Women Behind Wool?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
