15. Textbook(s)

15. Textbook(s)

I have so many GREAT textbooks! some cropped up earlier in this challenge in my Reading List.
But on my mind today is the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook by Deb Robson and Carol Ekarius. It’s been such a solid friend in my journey with knitting and wool.

I’m repairing my knitted speakers this week and was hoping to be able to display them at the XMTR.FM festival next weekend (27th – 29th) – however sadly the repairs required are more extensive than I first realised, and there isn’t time. I will keep working on them, though, as it’s an amazing project and I would love for them to once again baa together!

As I inspect the speakers looking for loose solder joints (what is causing the crackles?!) and opening up the covers to make repairs, I remember how much I love discovering the qualities of different kinds of wool – and the part that Deb Robson and this book have played in my appreciation for the diversity of wool and sheep breeds.

When the speakers work, they hang in the air like a dotty cloud, emitting sheepy sounds.

You have to press them to your ears to hear the sounds.

I have sound recordings made on many of the farms where the wool I used was grown. Together, sounds + wool speak to provenance, amplifying the people, places and animals behind each ball of yarn.

Wherever I’ve been recording sounds and collecting wool, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook has been, too. Shepherds seem to love seeing their breeds celebrated and represented and are always interested in what it says about their wool. One of my favourite ever moments in the long story of the knitted speakers was when Clara Black and her friend and daughter, Margaret, came to see the speakers and see what on earth I was doing with the sounds I recorded at their farm. Amy – Clara’s granddaughter – had a lovely flock of Rough Feel Sheep, who were very friendly and in fine voice when we went to see/hear them!

In the video below, in order, you can hear Julia Desch with her Wensleydale Sheep – Sussex 2008/2009; Shetland sheep at Sumburgh Head 2013; the horns of Hebridean sheep bashing on their hay feeder in Windermere 2012; Pam Hall’s Herdwicks galloping and her ram baaing at Fornside Farm 2012; and Amy Black’s Rough Fell Sheep recorded in the Lake District in 2012.

Wool from Julia and Pam is included in my knitted speakers along with some precious Rough Fell that I spun myself.

What textbooks have informed your favourite projects?
#KNITSONIKbacktoschool