Where does your wool come from?
At Moss Creek we are driven by quality and this extends to our wool suppliers. We use wool that has at most a 25 micron rating. The micron rating refers to the softness of the wool fibers. Softness is important both for the performance of the wool dryer ball but also in the felting stage of production. The better the micron rating the better the fiber will blend together when heated during felting. This is important as it prevents our balls from falling apart no matter how rough your dryer treats them, allowing for hundreds of loads to be done with one set of dryer balls.
Due to the amount of wool we go through every month and our use of different coloured wool, our wool is sourced from a variety of suppliers. We have received wool from flocks in Europe, Farmers collectives in the Patagonia foothills of Uruguay and as close as the western United States.
P.S. We are always on the lookout for farms raising heritage sheep.
If you are a wool producer with long fiber fleece or roving, we welcome the opportunity to use your wool.
How are the Sheep Treated?
Regardless of the ranches our wool comes from we have a few standards we always hold to them:
- Absolutely no mulesing. Mulesing is a cruel practice in which the parts of the skin of the sheep are cut away during the process of raising them.
- Ensuring the sheep are given adequate free range time outside of the barn. This helps to improve the quality of both the sheep’s life and the quality of their wool.
- No harmful chemicals are used for the processing of the fleece into roving. The sheep are never exposed to chemicals including sheep dips. The sheep are raised for their wool, not to eat.
We find the best way to ensure the treatment of the sheep and their fleeces is to simply ask questions. By educating ourselves and asking our suppliers questions we can ensure the wool that we get is coming from farm practices that we support well, also showing the livestock industry that there is demand for more sustainable and ethically raised wool.
Wool Processing
Our wool supplier practices low impact, environment friendly processing of the wool fleece into roving. Collected rain water from a natural reservoir is used for washing and wastewater is treated naturally in holding ponds. In Canada we use a pH balanced fabric wash (Forever New) during the felting process and remove any residual lanolin from the wool.