wool, from sheep to fabric - traditional techniques from portugal

The thing I love most about this video is how many of the techniques are 'wrong'.  My training is screaming "no!  you can't do that!  It will ruin everything!" And yet, it works so beautifully.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating - the proof of the weaving is in the cloth.  What a beautiful result!

That's the great thing about traditional weaving methods, they help remind us that this craft has been with humans since about the time we discovered how to use fire, possibly before.  There are more right ways to create cloth than there are wrong ones.  

This video is wonderfully inspiring.  I've got all sorts of ideas now on how I can improve my weaving space and new techniques I want to try.

The sheep are kept for milk, with wool and meat as a by-product.

Here's another video showing a shepherd with his flock, milking (from behind, not the side!) and cheese making.

That's interesting! I'm a city girl with no experience of the process of getting a sweater from raw wool. I hear that Samantha did a project this summer to take raw wool to a finished product. It's going to be featured in the newest Kickstarter movie called Low Tech Lab Movie 2. This is snippet of video edited for the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytK0O_gYldM

Monica Truong wrote:That's interesting! I'm a city girl with no experience of the process of getting a sweater from raw wool. I hear that Samantha did a project this summer to take raw wool to a finished product. It's going to be featured in the newest Kickstarter movie called Low Tech Lab Movie 2. This is snippet of video edited for the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytK0O_gYldM

This is the trailer from Samantha and Opalyn's Natural Textiles video showing them creating clothing from sheep to sweater. They are so talented!