Warmth of Wool
A selection of writing from my 2022 Masters Thesis on fiber arts.
Wool has a warmth to it, one that not only warms the skin but warms the soul. It carries the weight of your problems and stores them away. Wool is a friend that will drop everything to help you, no matter what the situation is. Beginning its life as the comforting coat of lamb or sheep, it protects its animal friend from an onslaught of weather, bugs, and prickly plants that roam the pastures. It builds itself up thick, crinkly, and cozy so that the animal can live out its life without care. Wool is noble. It doesn’t matter if the sun is beating down, bleaching it from the strongest of rays, or if the rain is pouring, soaking it to its core. It will not allow for suffering no matter what. It gives the sheep warmth, the type of warmth that your favorite blanket gives you on the coldest of winter days.
Sheering comes. The wool has finally grown into the beautiful natural coat that it was meant to be. Protected by the good oils from the skin of the sheep that helped it grow, curl, and crimp. There is a slight struggle. The sheep does not want to get rid of its protector. However, a new one will grow and continue the everlasting cycle. The handler is careful not to hurt the sheep nor the fleece. Now free, the wool can become anything it wishes to be. Maybe it wishes to be a felted hat, a knitted scarf, or the centerpiece of an elegant tapestry. It relinquishes its job as protector and now has the space to do what it was always meant to be—a useful friend to the creative soul.
Wool has become my close friend in times of uncertainty and pain. It protects me, much like it protects the sheep, shielding me and discarding the emotional traumas that I have experienced. It allows me to take up space when I am constantly afraid to do so. I hold its hand, feeling the gentle caress in my own palm. It speaks to me on most days; it doesn’t solely give away its freedom after being sheared and put into my care. The wool is strong enough to tell me what it wants done that day. “I want a new color.” Maybe a beautiful shade of blush pink. “I want to be bound together to create felt fabric.” Would you want some silk adornments? “I would love to be spun into thick yarn.” Do you want to have bobbles or a single strand? It allows me to pull on it, but not too tight that it rips away completely, for it tells me with a sharp pull back if I pulled too hard. It soaks up all the natural colors of dye, becoming friends with the madder, the chamomile, and the roses in the warm soak bath I create for it. Thanking me for creating new looks, giving the wool a purpose beyond what is known of it. We have a symbiotic relationship rather than a parasitic one. It speaks to me on its good days and on the bad ones, it tells me stories about how it was once on the sheep, showing me the luscious curls and crimps it formed then. I tell it the stories that live tucked away in my mind, and it listens to me actively.
I appreciate that the wool gives me a space to speak, and it absorbs anything that I have to say. Much like how it recorded the growth of its sheep friend, it records the thoughts I have when we are together. Even though our language isn’t usually spoken out loud, it can still understand the thoughts that flow through my mind. An act most noticeable when it becomes yarn, its favorite costume. When anxiety hits me the wool reacts, it tightens, the coils wrap around each other and the wool feels suffocated. When I feel calm, it loosens to a point where it feels like clouds, it gives itself breathing room and allows itself to be shown through the yarn. Wool understands both the negative and positive emotions that flow between us and is forgiving when the bad takes over too often. Wool is a friend like no other, sacrificing itself to help those of us who use it. Not a fair relationship, but we try to treat the wool with kindness. This kindness forms a bond between the wool and its creator. It responds in a way that brings about a warmth to whomever is around it. Yes, a physical warmth, but also an emotional one. The radiance of love and care comes spewing out from wool. It has become my best friend.