A Woolly Situation

I’ve not written for a couple of weeks, mainly due to having to work like a bitch, so I really should probably write something cerebral about theory and socialism, but instead I’m opting to write about wool. Ok, so it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, and it comes free with sheep, but as I’ve been busying myself preparing for the winter by knitting a scarf and a pair of socks, I’ve been thinking about some of the changes that have been going on in the knitting world over the last ten years. Knitting is now more popular than it has been since the 1970s. It is all of a sudden a thriving industry; the ‘stitch and bitch’ movement and websites such as ravelry (something akin to a knitting facebook) have created a new knitting social sphere, and alongside that new markets. But these markets are having a decidedly problematic effect of what knitting actually is.

A merino sheep: nice horns, shame about the social implications

Knitting has always been a cheap way to make clothes. Wool is a by-product of the meat industry (although certain sheep have always been reared particularly for the quality of their wool), and where tailored clothes have been expensive, knitting has offered people a cheap and effective way for people to clothe themselves. No more. These days if you take a trip down to a haberdashers or a knitting shop you’ll find all sorts of yarn ranging from something rainbow-coloured, knobbly, hand-spun and looking like it was dragged out of a hippy’s arse to machine-spun plain colours, but what connects them all is that they’re “merino”. Merino is the softest and finest sheep’s wool and the merino sheep is bred particularly for this, and the consequence is that this new wool comes at a cost. What before you’d only use for special fashion items is now all you can buy. Almost all the wool from all the sheep in England goes to waste. It is apparently not economically viable for it to be spun and sold.

As a knitter I can understand why all these new fashionable knitters want to knit in merino. It is lovely stuff and very soft, but it’s not exactly hard-wearing and I’m not sure how long my socks will last. Nor is it cheap. A ball of merino will most likely set you back about three times what a ball of other wool would cost, but its dominance in the market has now also pushed up the price of other wools as apparently a ball of normal wool is a speciality product. So what’s the consequence of this? Knitting is becoming more and more expensive as a passtime. Those people who have done it all of their lives can now often only afford to knit in polyester, meaning their products are simply not of the same quality. The latest middle-class fad has pushed older knitting communities out of the market. Older patterns become impossible to knit (god help you if you want to knit socks in traditional three-ply, and if you like old Shetland patterns then your only hope seems to be to buy your wool directly from the Shetlands over the internet.)

I don’t tend to stand up for small business. I generally think it’s a rather reformist aim, but in this case I think it’s the only way if we are to properly preserve a passtime that great numbers of people enjoy before it becomes prohibitively expensive (if it isn’t already.) We have a great resource in our wool, and currently it is just being thrown away. So if you are a knitter, maybe the next time you go out to buy some wool it may be worth thinking about whether you’re contributing to the demise of knitting as something all people can enjoy rather than just the privileged few.