Join Clara Parkes on a cross-country adventure and meet a cast of characters that includes the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting needles would be empty, our mills idle, and our feet woefully cold. Travel the country with her as she meets a flock of Saxon Merino sheep in upstate New York, tours a scouring plant in Texas, visits a steamy Maine dyehouse, helps sort freshly shorn wool on a working farm, and learns how wool fleece is measured, baled, shipped, and turned into skeins. In pursuit of the perfect yarn, Parkes describes a brush with the dangers of opening a bale (they can explode), and her adventures from Maine to Wisconsin ("the most knitterly state") and back again; along the way, she presents a behind-the-scenes look at the spinners, scourers, genius inventors, and crazy-complex mill machines that populate the yarn-making industry. By the end of the book, you'll be ready to set aside the backyard chickens and add a flock of sheep instead. Simply put, no other book exists that explores American culture through the lens of wool. (Abrams Press)
Author of six books including the New York Times bestselling Knitlandia, as well as editor of the anthology A Stash of One’s Own, Clara Parkes has dedicated her life to figuring out what makes wool tick—and finding the right words to write about it. Through her wool advocacy, writings, workshops, books, television and radio appearances, and custom-sourced yarns, Parkes champions the notion of paying closer attention to what we put on our bodies and where it came from.
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