The Wool Trail

The wool I found, the people I met, and the stories I love sharing!

FOLLOW THE WOOL

When I got to Ireland, I didn't have a plan for choosing the wool. I knew I wanted to find it. I wanted to see the sheep, visit a farm, find yarn, and bring some of it home with me. But I didn't have a list of colors. I wanted the place to lead me.

That started on my first day in Galway. I walked the Long Walk and just looked. The grass was soft and full. The water was blue. The sky was light and airy. The old walls and buildings had that worn, weathered character Galway is known for, but there was something soft about them, too. I didn't know it yet, but I was already choosing my wool.

When I started walking into the yarn and Aran sweater shops around Galway, I found myself looking for the colors I'd just been seeing outside. A soft green for the grass. Blue for the sky and water.

Cream for the buildings. I bought a few skeins and stopped myself there. It was my first day. I wasn't about to come home with twenty skeins of yarn and then figure out what to do with them.

But I started thinking about a different way to choose.

What if I looked for the things I was noticing? What if the wool became a collection of little pieces of Ireland?

Then I flew over the Aran Islands. From above, I saw green and stone everywhere. So when I found a yarn that mixed green with gray, I knew exactly why I wanted it. Later, flying back, I noticed these little flashes of yellow. Then I drove through Connemara National Park, and suddenly it was yellow everywhere. Around every corner. Yellow, yellow, yellow. Gorse. So I went looking for yellow wool.

The mountains became another color story. Darker mountains with those pale gray, beige, almost white tops. Someone local told me the green hadn't come in yet and that if I came back another month, the mountains would be completely different. I liked them exactly as they were.

Then there was Clifden, where the buildings themselves brought another collection of colors into the picture. And in Leenane, I thought I was going to choose a dark blue to remind me of the fjord.

Then I saw two skeins sitting in a bucket. I touched one. It was soft with lanolin, and I loved it immediately. So I took it to the counter. The woman there was named Gladys. She looked at the skein and said, “I spun this.” She was so excited. These were her first skeins. And suddenly that wool wasn't just something I had found in Ireland. It had a person attached to it. So I put the blue back. I bought Gladys's wool instead.

That's how the wool came home with me. Not because I had planned the colors. Because I had been paying attention. The land chose some of it. The colors chose some of it. And sometimes a person did.

I didn't always know what I was going to make. I just knew I wanted to remember where it came from.

THE COLORS I BROUGHT HOME

The wool told me what to look for!

The Long Walk, the sky, and the water

Aran Islands: the stone and green grass

Clifden: mountains, gorse, colorful buildings

Kylemore Abbey: New blossoms

Leenane: Gladys's spun wool

Westport's colorful buildings

Westport's feminine side

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE WOOL

The wool trail doesn't really begin in a yarn shop. It begins with sheep. When I went to Killary Sheep Demonstration Farm, I got to see a little bit of what happens before that wool ever becomes something I can pick up in a shop and take home.

PJ AND THE SHEEP

I got to the farm early. PJ led me into the shed, where there were probably twenty or thirty little lambs, some only about ten days old. He showed me how to hold them, took some pictures for me, and then told me to stay there until he came back or the next group arrived. So that's what I did. I was giddy as I cuddled these cute little lambs.

After a while I started hearing people arriving, so I wandered back outside and waited for the demonstration to begin. The whole farm sits right on the water, with the mountains behind it, and there were sheep everywhere.

Then I noticed the dog. The border collie was tied up to his post, waiting. PJ explained that he was still in training (about a year and a half old) and talked about what they look for in a sheepdog.

Then the demonstration started. What amazed me wasn't how loud or dramatic it was. It wasn't. PJ barely raised his voice. He used simple commands, and that dog moved the entire flock. Come by. Down. Right. Simple words. The dog knew what they meant. The sheep knew what they meant. And somehow, this whole group of animals moved exactly where they needed to go.

I just stood there watching.

It was probably a fifteen-minute demonstration, but I could have watched much longer. During the questions afterward, someone asked if the dogs got treats when they did a good job. PJ said, “This is my coworker.” He explained that the dog has a place to sleep, food, shelter, and is well taken care of, but he's his coworker. Not a pet.

I loved that because that's exactly what it looked like. Two coworkers doing a job together. Standing there watching them, I suddenly wasn't thinking about the skeins of wool waiting for me in the shops. I was thinking about where the wool begins.

A sheep. A farm. A dog. A person who knows exactly what he's doing. That's the part of the wool story I wanted to see.

Why I Travel to Ireland During Lambing Season _ Killary Sheep Farm Sneak Peek (1).mp4

GLADYS'S FIRST SKEINS

I thought I was going to buy the blue.

I had been looking for something to remind me of the fjord in Leenane, and I had already picked out the color in my head. Then I saw these two skeins sitting in a bucket.

I touched one. It was soft with lanolin, and I loved it immediately. I took it to the counter.

The woman there was named Gladys. She looked at the skein and said, “I spun this.” She was so excited.

These were her first skeins. Suddenly, this wasn't just wool I had found in Ireland. It had a person attached to it.

So I put the blue back.

I bought Gladys's wool instead. Later, it became the Spinner's Wool Basket.

I still like the blue.

But I'm really glad I touched that skein.

Hand-Spun Irish Wool Crossbody Bag _ Crochet Work in Progress #wip (1).mp4

Where I bought the wool for the Spinner's Wool

THE HANDS THAT MADE IT

Before wool becomes a skein, a sweater, a bag, or anything else, there are a lot of hands involved.

At the Connemara Sheep & Wool Centre in Leenane, I got to watch some of that process up close. There was spinning, weaving, and a whole lot of machinery I could have stood there watching all day.

The demonstrator showed us how the loom worked by working the pedals, moving the shuttle back and forth, and turning all those individual movements into something beautiful.

I loved watching it.

Not because I needed to learn how to do all of it myself.

Just because I wanted to see what happens before the wool ever gets to me.

WHAT I BROUGHT HOME...

... not all of it fit in my suitcase!

I went to Ireland looking for wool. I did bring some home. Quite a lot, actually.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was collecting other things, too. Colors I hadn't planned on choosing. The feel of lanolin on a skein of wool. The sound of a sheepdog working. A conversation with Gladys at a counter in Leenane.

The way the mountains looked before the green came in. Yellow gorse around every corner. Stone walls. Wind. Water. A road I almost didn't take. A few things I didn't know I was looking for.

That's probably the part I like most about traveling. You leave home thinking you're going to find one thing. And you come back with something else entirely.

Some of it becomes a bag. Some of it becomes a pair of arm warmers. Some of it is still sitting in my studio, waiting for me to figure out what it wants to become. Some of it never becomes anything you can hold.

It just changes the way you look at things. I think that's what came home with me.

From the road to the hook!