5 Reasons You Should Try Knitting With Farm Yarn
Farm yarn is totally underrated in the knitting community, at least it is in my opinion. I’m here today to share with you the reasons why it might be time to give it a try!
Some of the sheep used for Mountain Meadow Wool and naturally dyed by Henlia Handmade
1. You can see the actual sheep the yarn comes from
If you like to see where your yarn comes from, farm yarn is your absolute best bet. While the wool for most yarn both commercially and indie-dyed comes from abroad, when you see a dyer (like myself) proudly boast using farm wool, you can be sure they can share pictures of their yarn’s sheep. This is so much fun for me to be able to do. I just love it when customers ask me for pictures.
When you’re in the area, many times you can even visit the sheep on the ranch or tour the mill where it’s spun!
2. Question? Talk to a real person!
Call up that local number and the owner herself just might answer. If not the owner, you’ll likely find yourself engaged with a friendly and knowledgeable staff member. Not only do they totally know their stuff, but they LOVE to talk wool and to answer all your questions. And, at least in my experience, I’ve never had to wait on hold or feel rushed in asking my questions (and I’ve talked to a lot of mills in the past couple of years). One beauty of learning more about a mill’s yarn directly from them, is that they’re usually a very small business and have the time it takes to really talk with you.
3. You will be supporting the U.S. economy
Buy farm yarn, support our economy. All the money you spend buying farm yarn goes directly back into our economy right here in the U.S. This small gesture helps keep more jobs for Americans. If buying American made is important to you, you can feel really good about buying farm yarn because that’s exactly what you’re doing.
Natural, undyed farm yarn
4. Support local, small business
Shopping small like this literally keeps family ranches in business so they can feed their families and keep the lights on.
Let’s take a moment to talk specifically about Mountain Meadow Wool. I love to talk about this incredible small business because it’s where I source the wool for my own yarn dyeing business. They are a woman-owned company originally founded for the purpose of helping keep Wyoming ranchers in business. These ranches are now thriving because they’re receiving a fair wage for their stunning wool, which is not as common as you’d think.
Also, as mentioned in the above point, buying farm yarn provides jobs. Jobs for the ranchers and all they employ, jobs for the spinning mills and jobs for the dyers. Your purchase truly does make a difference in the lives of many, many people.
Have a Speckly Day in worsted weight
5. Your yarn is guaranteed to be full of glorious character
No boring commercial uniformity here! You’ll get beautiful texture unlike you can get with commercially spun yarn. You might notice an ever so slightly thick and thin consistency to your farm yarn. Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to get a skein or two with a small softly spun section incorporated into it like finding a double sized chocolate chunk in your favorite ice cream. And a piece or two of leftover debris from the sheep rolling around is the icing on the cake!
This yarn is just so much fun to knit with. These tiny pieces of sheep love add a touch of texture and character to your projects that simply can’t be beat. I don’t know about you, but when I knit, I’d never want my projects to turn out so perfectly as to pass for an off the rack garment. I want it to reflect the all the hours and love I put into making it. Using farm yarn gives it just enough added character to turn heads…not to mention the added enjoyment to the knitting process.
Now that I’ve knit almost exclusively with farm yarn for the past few years, I just don’t know if I could ever go back to using commercially spun yarn. It’s just that fun to use!
*Bonus reason to try using farm yarn
It’s like a getting a hug from a sheep. Now what knitter wouldn’t want to experience that?!
In conclusion: hug some farm yarn, hug a sheep.
Have I convinced you to try farm wool?
Have you ever knit with farm yarn? What do you love about it? Is there anything you don’t like about it?
If you haven’t tried knitting with farm yarn yet, what’s holding you back? Do you have questions I can try to answer for you? Drop them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to help.
Mindy Kingery
When I'm not dyeing, designing or dreaming of yarn, you can find me digging in my garden, hiking with my family or working on one of my many, many WIPs.
2 Comments
I have never tried farm yarn. Your colors are absolutely gorgeous and I love the fact that you use natural colors. I may just have to try a couple. This sounds silly, but in all the years I have been crocheting and the few years I have been knitting, I never gave much thought to purchasing yarns like this. It’s always been a purchase from a local craft store. I don’t really have any local yarn shops close to me. Thank you for introducing me to this yarn. I look forward to trying this.
Thank you for sharing, Tami. And I don’t think it’s silly at all that you’ve only used yarn from craft stores. I could be wrong here, but I’d say most knitters and crocheters start with craft store yarn. I used it for years and years! There’s nothing wrong with using what’s available locally to you, but I’d be honored for you to try some of my farm yarn too❤