Dispatch No 3 - It is not over until it is over

The start of a whole new yarn, spinning the old and the local into one.

Good things come to those who wait, they say.
I thought it would be easier, but when you are doing something new, things are never as simple as you think.

My original goal was to take our factory scraps, the ones too small to use, the cotton and linen ones, and recycle them into a new yarn.

For this, you need a carrier yarn. We don’t spin cotton here in the UK anymore, so wool seemed the ideal candidate. Taking local British wool and combining it with our own recycled cotton waste. Something that’s still not possible in the UK.

I’ve spent many hours with the now-retiring @Dr John Parkinson and Jo Storey, working out how to make this happen. I’m no expert, so bringing in people like John and Jo has been invaluable. We’re not at the end of the road yet.

In the end, cotton is just too hard to recycle. It’s flammable and dusty. We need to work harder to find a solution, but I believe we will.

So for now, we’ve taken a step back. Reconsidered. Accepted it might take longer.

Cotton isn’t the only waste we’ve been collecting. From the off-cuts and moth-eaten parts of the wool blankets from our Wool Blanket Project, we’ve been able to create something new, soon to be mixed with virgin wool.

John, the “shoddy man”, who runs INOUIIO (It’s Not Over Until It’s Over), has been a bit of a hero in this space. Taking rags and waste wool and turning them back into yarn is a skill that was close to being lost before John brought it back. And now, he’s about to retire.

Keen for this project to be about locality and recycling, we’ve sourced wool from a local shepherdess, Julia, and are following it through each step towards a yarn we can truly call our own.

We’ll keep you updated on how it goes.