Lucy Waterhouse - BA (Hons) Textiles In Practice

Fleece Forward - Reimaging Wool

The wool that I worked with was collected by myself from Swaledale sheep living in the Peak District. Throughout my project I have I collected the wool, cleaned, spun and weaved it myself. I also bought undyed Swaledale, and Bluefaced Leicester yarns which had been processed by a local company, in order that I could look at the different characteristics of wool from various breeds of sheep. In my work, all handmade, I wanted to replicate the feel of wool and use colours from the sheep's environment. I have tried to bring awareness of the huge amount of waste wool produced as the wool journeys from the sheep to the finished product. Sustainability could be improved by finding other uses for the waste wool, an example of this I found locally was a farmer who used the wool as insulation to line her bee hives. I used my own waste yarn as stuffing for my knitted pieces.

This sample is called ‘Fleece Forward’ which replicates the feel of sheep’s wool. I have used colours from my colour palette which consist of shades of greens, brown and berry, all colours from the sheeps environment. “Fleece Forward” is created with punch needle is handmade, and the wooden frame was found in a charity shop. The knitted pieces are all hand knitted to create more ripples like wool would naturally have. These knitted pieces have been stuffed with waste yarn which you can see if you look closely.

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