This project ran for two years, with a slight overspill caused by covid! This year, once the sheep were sheared, the best of the fleece was sent to Griffiths Mill to be spun into Aran yarn.
This has now been returned, and together with one / two skeins of chunky hand spun wool from last year, is ready for sale!
Some will be kept back for the staff and residents to use in ongoing craft projects, using the skills learnt in the workshops, with a few ‘reminder’ sessions as needed. Last week , several women started to learn to crochet.
For more details of the 2 year project, see below.
We were delighted to run a 2 year project, ‘Sheep to Craft’, with the residents of Charis House, Buxton, and Oldfield Farm, a safe place where homeless women, including those escaping from domestic violence, and women recovering from drug and alcohol dependency can find rest and recovery.
This programme worked with artist carol Wilson, and residents and other women in the community in a wide range of creative arts.
Workshops were held at Good News Family Care’s Family Centre or Oldfield Farm.
Funded by The Ashley Foundation, The South West Peak Landscape Partnership, and the John Booth Charitable Trust, the project seeked to provide a fun, creative way of learning new skills, socialising and doing something different. The main ingredient in this project came straight from local fields, courtesy of our four-legged fleeced friends at Oldfield Farm! Local Lleyn sheep took centre stage, with women learning all the processes about how to transform a sheep’s fleece into carded wool – washing, sorting, dying, and carding – and then using the carded wool for wet felting, needle felting and weaving, as well as spinning the carded wool into yarn.
In order to learn about how to earn some income from the fleece / yarn, we have created our own brand ‘Good Ewes’, and made needlefelting kits, for people to make their own sheep or robins – sold for £10 from High Peak Community Arts or Good News Family Care. These kits contained all you needed, including needles, needle holder and foam blocks, and we also sold top up kits for those who already had needles and foam at £7.50. We had themed bags of dyed fleece for £5.
We also sold the first batch of Good Ewes yarn.
Here is our display at ‘Made in New Mills ‘ on September 28th …and more pics from workshops, below that..
