There has been a lot of hub-bub lately about wool vs polyester. There are a couple of companies who thought it would be cute to degrade sheep and wool in their advertising campaigns to promote their polyester products. Just in case you didn't know, this is the short version of how polyester is made. This comes direct from a web page by Craft Tech Industries.
Synthetic polyester is made using a chemical reaction involving coal, petroleum, air and water.Polyester is made up of purified terephthalic acid (PTS) or its dimethyl ester dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) and monotheluene glycol (MEG).
Snuggle up to that.
If you're reading this, you probably already know how wool is made. By sheep. Period. We can carry it further and go into the production of a sweater. Let's first start with the Shepherd, the man or woman raising the sheep to begin with.
I have come across many shepherds in my day. There is one common thread, pardon my pun, among ALL of these people. They love their sheep and they love spending time with them. As a matter of fact, most shepherds I know would rather be out with their sheep than out amongst people. Think about a true sheepherder and how much time he spends alone. We sheep people are a bit different and that is something I am proud of. Some shepherds don't have children. They have sheep. And dogs. And those sheep and dogs are their children. They name them, feed them, nurture them and would certainly never harm them. Do you see where I am going with this? The care we give our animals is often better than the care we give ourselves. Right or wrong, it's true. For any one person, organization or group of supposedly well-meaning people to say anything different is flat out fallacy.
I admit, I am one of those weird sheep people. I own it. I am also proud of the fact that in this mill, we take care of your fiber as if it were our own animals it came off of. We know the heart and soul, sweat and labor and even sometimes tears, you put into producing lovely wool. We live it too. We give your fiber the utmost care while it's here so that you end up with a product you love when we hand it back to you.
I will leave you with this. I have never put any credence into anyone who has to put down one product in order to sell their own.
Very well said. The only thing that I would add is that even with large comercial flocks, the sheep are well cared for. In production agriculture, in general, good care equals $.
LaVonne is 100% correct about the connection and commitment that we have to our flocks.