it, lie on it, lie under it, walk on it, sit on it, stuff it in rooves and walls and be kept warm by it, or just make something beautiful and look at it.


And, if we don’t value it, not only will we be doomed to a world of unremittingly man-made fibres but we could be facing a change, in Britain, from rolling moorland to not-any-moor land, as sheep stocks dwindle and no one else offers to take on the constant mowing required to fend off a wholesale return of the land to unkempt bramble and scrub.


Meanwhile, over at famous London department store, Liberty’s, sheep sculpted from willow featured in the window displays and, upstairs, the winning pieces from the Rowan Design competition, one of the company’s contributions to promoting Wool Week, were drawing crowds.


Students from the Royal College of Art had been tasked with ‘challenging the perception of hand knitting by exploring new uses for knitting’ and the key word was ‘Freedom’. They certainly let go! There was a giant knitted chair; a fringed coat that used more than 60 balls of wool to complete; a Flower- Power inspired dressed incorporating felted, Mary Quant-esque flourishes; a continuous loop scarf, loosely based on an old tea-cosy pattern; a shift dress literally based on split metal rings and a full-length dress echoing the romantic curves of the Art Nouveau period. Full details of the winning designs and the designers are featured in Rowan Knitting and Crochet Magazine 50, but here’s just a taster to whet the appetite.


80


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