Grass Fed Beef Version of Yarn?

[fek&fuzz]

I was knitting on my Patton's Wool from Michael's, when suddenly I wondered about the sheep. I eat grass-fed pastured beef from local farms, and get my pork and eggs locally. Yet, there I sat with yarn that may have come from some horrible feed-lot yarn factory.

So, are there giant sheep ranches with cages piled upon cages? Or do the sheep live happily in the mountains of Argentina?

Where can I buy yarn from happy sheep (besides from the guy who supplies my pork and eggs)?

[fallriverfox]

Well, I buy Llama roving at our local farmer's market. Since she always tells me the name of the llama it came from, I figure they are pretty happy llamas. My LYSs often have alpaca yarn from local farmers. So you might try places like that.

[kundemama]

If buying yarn and roving is available from local happy sheep, I would go that route. But if not, a place like Full Belly Farm sounds like a good place.

[flapjack]

Buy British yarn. We give the buggers half the countryside to graze upon

With total seriousness, I've been buying British for a while now, and don't want to buy from either Rowan or Debbie Bliss because they can't give me the assurances on animal welfare that I'm looking for from them. You really need either organic or local - I know that there are exceptions, like PF, but they're few and far between.

[riverside knitter]

Marr Haven, Blackberry Ridge, Full Belly Farms, Green Mountain Spinnery and Sweetgrass Wool are all good sources of happy sheep yarn in the US. I'm sure there are others out there as well.

[FillingMyQuiver]

Have you tried searching for local yarns available to you? You can search through www.localharvest.org

I know there's some local yarns available to me, like alpaca and some wool. I also plan on randomly stopping at a house by my mom's that has sheep and asking what they do w/ their fleeces :

[mountaincaats]

It's crazy when I do a search within 100 miles of Asheville, NC, nothing comes up. We have a craft and arts mecca here. Just interesting to me. Thanks for the links ladies.

~~
Shannon

[reillys_mom]

I've bought some nice yarn that I used for dying by searching on Local Harvest or etsy.com. I also raise sheep at my summer camp in large pastures. The free range is important in raising them just for fiber, I guess organic would be next (though as I think about I can't guarantee all the hay they get in the winter is organic) especially since we raise ours primarily for meat. The washing process is really where you get into whether chemicals are added, though wool is also a good gauge because if you use harsh chemicals on it you degrade the quality.