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We're here to help you stitch sustainability into every aspect of your making.
With our carefully curated selection of non-superwash, plastic-free yarns and notions, we have everything you need to get started on your next project - and the one after that.
Here's to a wardrobe of knits we love and want to wear for years to come!
We're here to help you stitch sustainability into every aspect of your making.
With our carefully curated selection of non-superwash, plastic-free yarns and notions, we have everything you need to get started on your next project - and the one after that.
Here's to a wardrobe of knits we love and want to wear for years to come!
May 05, 2020 3 min read
'Mulesing-free' - a few months ago, when I asked on Instagram what you, our lovely readers, look for in a sustainable yarn, that was by far the number one answer. So today we're taking a look at what mulesing-free yarn is, and to do that, we're going to dive headfirst into the world of sheep farming!
'Mulesing' is the term for a procedure developed by JHW Mules in the 1920s. During this procedure, strips of skin are removed around a lamb's butt, usually when the lamb is between 6 and 10 weeks old.
Why? Mulesing is one of the ways you can prevent flystrike in sheep - a fatal (if untreated) parasitic infection where fly larvae grow inside a sheep's body and feed of its skin and flesh. As the skin that will eventually cover the wound on the lamb's buttocks will grow significantly less wool than before, feces and urine - both things that attract the blowflies causing flystrike - are a lot less likely to accumulate there. Therefore, mulesed sheep are less susceptible to flystrike.
Mulesing has come under a lot of scrutiny as it's often done without anesthetics or painkillers, and observations suggest that in addition to the immediate pain and discomfort, lambs have trouble gaining weight after the procedure.
The problem of flystrike, however, is still a very real one with fatal consequences for the sheep.
Breeding programs that work on increasing the number of sheep with less wrinkles - especially in the buttocks area - have shown that so-called 'plain-bodied' (i.e. less wrinkly) sheep are significantly less likely to get flystrike. This obviously takes a long time, though, so while it seems to be the most promising avenue forward, it's not a quick fix!
A shorter-term alternative is spraying the sheep once per season with dicyclanil, a chemical that prevents blowfly growth on the sheep. This, coupled with more frequent flock inspections, has been shown to keep flystrike rates at the level of mulesed sheep (1). It requires more resources, however, both for the more frequent treating of the sheep as well as for the inspections.
'Steining'is a third alternative - this describes a procedure during which liquid nitrogen is applied to the buttock's folds of the sheep. The tissue in those wrinkles freezes, effectively killing off all nerve cells, and eventually the wrinkles will fall off, leading to similar result to mulesing: The area around the sheep's butt is covered with less fleece and therefore less susceptible to flystrike. As this method is relatively new - it's been developed towards the end of the 2010s - studies on its effects are not yet available. Observations seem to suggest that lambs recover more quickly from steining than from mulesing and that there's no weight gain issue after this procedure.
Short answer: No: Longer and more practical answer: No, and you can take a look at the source of the fleeces to rule out mulesing.
Why is that so? Today, mulesing is - to our knowledge - only practiced in Australia. New Zealand - the only other country that's practiced mulesing in the near past - has banned it as of October 2018. So if the raw fleeces that have been used in your yarn do not come from Australia, chances are that the sheep have not been mulesed.
If they do come from Australia, though, they might well have been: According to government estimates from 2019 (2), approximately 70% of Merino wool-producing sheep in Australia are mulesed. This also has to do with an interesting development in Australian sheep farming: Historically, Australian Merino sheep - the predominant sheep breed present on the continent - have been bred to have a lot of wrinkles. Why? More wrinkles = more fleece = higher profit per sheep. Unfortunately, though, the more wrinkles a sheep has, the more susceptible it is to flystrike as well.
I highly encourage you to contact the yarn company and ask them about it! Before you do that, you can also spend a bit of time on their website - most yarn companies that are working with mulesing-free wool from Australia will have information about that publicly available. If that's not the case, write them and ask!
I'd be curious to hear: What are your favorite mulesing-free yarns? Do leave them in the comments down below, I love discovering new-to-me yarns!
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17359305
(2) https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/livestock-parasites/managing-non-mulesed-sheep
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March 11, 2024 1 min read 2 Comments
Hello lovelies!
I am back today with a slightly unusual post that starts with a big, big apology to Liza Laird. Liza is a wonderful author (you might know her book Yoga of Yarn), knitter, teacher and yogi, and we were supposed to publish her beautiful poem "in and out", inspired by the ocean, in our Issue 11, "Seashore".
While I was putting the final touches on our layout, I realized that we had a spread too many (we always print in increments of 4 pages, or 2 spreads) and inadvertently cut the spread with Liza's poem instead of the photo spread I meant to delete.
February 14, 2024 4 min read
Hi lovelies! I kind of completely dropped the ball on putting FO posts out there, but as you all very kindly let me know through our "what do you want to read on the blog" survey, you actually really like them, so we have some catching up to do!
We're starting with two FOs that have actually quite recently only been finished – if by recently we mean the end of 2023. They're both from Issue 10, and were both a delight to knit!
February 06, 2024 13 min read
Hi lovelies! I am so delighted to welcome our second double-digit magazine issue into the Making Stories family: Issue 11, Seashore! Our Spring 2024 issue features 12 wonderful, layerable, delightful-to-knit patterns that are fabulous on beach days, a stroll through the park, or a day out with the kids.
We also welcome Liza Laird with a beautiful poem about our relationship to the ocean to our pages.
You can preorder Issue 11 now through us or one of our fabulous stockists – or you subscribe to the magazine which gives you 15% off Issues 11 and 12 and early access to our magazine yarns!
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