Clara Parkes

Clara Parkes is well-known among knitters and fiber enthusiasts as an expert on wool and the role of heritage breed sheep, their wool, and regenerative practices in combating climate change. She is an advocate for replacing synthetics with wool in a variety of uses beyond clothing. But before that Parkes was an instructor, appearing at all sorts of events to teach crafters about the properties of various types of yarn and the best ways to use them.

Knitlandia emerged from that experience. show more Published in 2017 and billed as a “travel memoir,” this essay collection takes us inside some of the most notable events in the knitting calendar, like Vogue Knitting LIVE and the Squam retreats. It’s the ultimate comfort read for knitters, as well as a throwback to the early 2010s when knitting experienced a renaissance of sorts and, enabled by the internet, spawned a new industry of independent designers and yarn producers. Some of the events in Knitlandia no longer exist, and others have evolved in both positive and negative ways. For me, this was a nostalgic trip down memory lane and a comfort read I could return to again. show less

I have no idea where I heard about this one, and now I am wondering if it was an Audible Daily Deal at some point. It's fascinating and completely charming. The author narrates it herself and does and excellent job - and I am very picky about my narrators. This is an examination of the American wool industry and why it is slowly vanishing. She starts with the sheep, and takes you all the way through her journey of turning a bale of fleece into marketable yarn. She divides up her fleece and show more some it goes through independent mills and some through highly commercial ones. She does the same thing when it comes to dying it. She asks great questions and makes you care about what the answers are, all the while making the journey a highly entertaining one. show less

I really enjoyed this collection. 4.5 stars. Eminently readable for a lover of yarn, the essays run the gamut from humorous to serious, the collections described from minimalist to SABLE-level, and the stashes from yarn to fiber to fabric.

Some of my favorites essays: I loved the beautiful and generous spirit behind Jillian' Moreno's fiber stash, and how easily it flows into her own creativity and to others. I appreciated Eugene Wyatt's tale of giving yarn away - it was a good reminder of how show more much you gain from giving instead of trying to get money before you'll let go. Franklin Habit's essay gave me all the feels and brought me to tears twice (on the bus commuting to work, no less!) - from the joy of reconciliation and recognition, and the sadness of loss.

Perhaps the most moving to me was Lilith Green's story of how her stash is part and parcel of growing to love her body - the one that society was always telling her wasn't good enough. I have three lots of sweater quantities in my stash, purchased 8-10 years ago, and I still haven't knit myself a sweater. Maybe it's time to stop waiting for the body I may never have and knit a sweater for the one I have. Also, I immediately followed her on Instagram after reading the essay - I want more people like her in my social media.

And, of course, I thought a lot about my own yarn and fiber stash when reading the essays. I'd _like_ to be a minimalist collector of yarn, buying when I'm ready to cast on, but I'm not. (I probably have 10 years' worth of knitting in my stash*, in part because I'm a slow knitter, but also because I'm a spinner. About a quarter of my stash is fiber, and about half of my yarn is my handspun.) I try to knit from stash - and I like that when I jumped on the Find Your Fade bandwagon, I was able to pull two Fade sets from my stash. (I also like it, that after I finish knitting those Fades, my sock yarn stash may be small enough that I couldn't do that again).

I do feel weighed down by the burden of all my yarn, even though I have culled it enough that most of what remains is yarn I really do love. I think I'll take some inspiration from this book to give some yarn away, especially some of that handspun I don't have projects in mind for, and open myself up to maintaining my stash through generosity, as several essayists have recommended. And embrace that sometimes the spinning is all the project ends up being.

* My Ravelry user name is potentialofyarn and my stash is up to date :-) show less

Clara Parkes claims to be the only professional yarn critic. After decades of working with with wool, she decided it was time to explore American wool from sheep to needle through a business venture. This book traces her journey from 2012 (the purchase of 676-pound bale of wool) to publication in 2019.

Parkes states that she was setting out on her own Michael Pollan journey, and it was actually off the heels of reading a Pollan book that I decided to search for something on wool and came show more across this title (so, judging by search algorithms, she has accomplished her aim).

The book is quite short, coming it at less than two-hundred pages, or around five hours of audio.

Through this book Parkes explores the American wool industry from small to industrial scale, in a number of hand-on field trips. Her writing in engaging and articulate.

In 2010, Slow Money was booming and local food systems were gaining prominence. Around this time I asked the founder of Slow Money, "why just local food; what about everything else?" He responded, "that's my aim, but we need to start somewhere." A decade on, it feels as though our country is now ready to move out from local food, to local manufacturing and supply, and Parkes' journalism epitomizes this shift.

Last summer I purchased my first pair of American grown, woven, and sewn jeans from Hartford Denim Company in Connecticut. This winter I purchased two shirts of American grown, spun, knit, and dyed wool from Rambler's Way in Maine. All of these pieces of clothing were expensive, but the Hardenco jeans have a lifetime warranty of unlimited repairs, and the last pair of shirts I got from Rambler's way lasted me a good five years of weekly use. People used to get by with only a few pairs of clothes that they washed once a month; why do we need massive quantities of poorly-made textiles? These items represent one of my five pairs of pants, and two of my ten long-sleeve shirts.

You can't discuss American manufacturing without at least alluding to a subtext of globalization, financialization, neoliberalism, nativism, and wealth inequality. Although this book isn't political in nature and doesn't explicitly explore these subjects, it isn't much of a leap to hear from the mouths of working- and owning-class Americans across the country the ways in which these topics pervade the question of, "why is the American wool industry a ghost of what it used to be?"

Another piece of subtext that Parkes doesn't broach, but isn't far beyond her line of thinking, regards the ecology of wool. Yes, wool doesn't off-gas, nor does it shed toxic micro-plastics. And yet, it was the wool boom of the 19th century that was partially responsible for the near-complete deforestation of New England forests, and the erosion of a majority of our upland topsoils. Being an advocate of regenerative agriculture, I'll be the first to mention that there are ways of raising sheep that result in a net ecological benefit; that said, I would also be remiss not to mention that the vast majority of agriculture, including a lot of wool production, results in negative outcomes for livestock wellbeing and ecosystem vitality.

This book speaks a bit to the aesthetics of craft. What it is like to make things with our own two hands? What is it like to work with equipment that has seen the generations come and go, and to be able to maintain that equipment on our own? My father has recently set himself up with a woodshed composed exclusively of hand tools, many of them restored from 19th century stock. I myself worked for a year as a tracker organ mechanic (the old style mechanical pipe organs). There is an inherent value to these ways of life that we shouldn't look to justify by other ends.

Although not quite so nostalgic or personal, Parkes poignant portraits of everyday Americans is reminiscent of the work of Peter Miller in his "Vermont People."

A recurring theme in Parkes' book is her dream of starting an all-American sweater company. I commend this attitude, and I wish her an entrepreneurial future. And, if she is to be successful, she'll need to give much consideration to the economic and ecological reasons that she doesn't have much competition.

If you're wondering what's next after farm-to-table, and considering the context in which a agricultural and rural economies can thrive, this is a great place to start. show less