Organic Wool Network
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 10.27.05
The Organic Wool Network is being launched in time for the holiday shopping and cool weather season. It's a collaborative of several U.S.-based organizations and companies making organic wool apparel, baby blankets and home textiles readily available for the first time to consumers online, in stores, and from catalogs.
To be certified as organic wool, USDA requires that the sheep be raised without the use of synthetic hormones or pesticides or overgrazing of the land, and with organic feed and under continuous organic management from the last third of gestation forward.
Organic wool products available from OWN participants include a sophisticated knee-length women’s coat by the Delano Collection (Brooklyn, NY); high-performance Merino wool hiking socks from Fox River Mills (Osage, IA); Merino wool crew and moisture-wicking hiking socks from Maggie’s Organics (Ypsilanti, MI); soft and natural colored Merino baby blankets and clothes from NUI Organics (Austin, TX); and sweaters from Patagonia (Ventura, CA) and Sahalie (Hillsboro, OR).
Organic wool? that's about the dumbest thing ever. All of the things mentioned in the reasons the wool is "organic" are pretty much already done. nobody fertilzes or puts pesticides on grazing pastures - it would poison the darn sheep! as far as no hormones - i don't know of a single farmer that uses hormones on sheep, they're throwaway animals. cheap to buy and cheap to raise. putting hormone pellets in their ears would be a waste of money. I'd venture to say that 80-90% of sheep are "organic" already, and this is just a marketing ploy from the obsessive compulsive PETA people. Ahh marketing.
No more nude sheep!
FABRIC! FABRIC!! FABRIC!!! Most of the fabric sold in the US is dyed overseas and full of formaldehyde. An extensive search of the internet revealed absolutely NO source for organic cottons and wools for quiltmakers!! Plenty of organic wool batting, but that's not gonna help if you're wrapping yourself in a quilt pumped full of formaldehyde and dyed using underpaid sweatshop labor. I can get lots of plain fabric if I want to dye it myself (I'm a quilt maker NOT a dyer!!). Thanks!
In response to Jeannie's post, we produce in the USA organic wool yarns pre-shrunk and dyed to organic standards.