The sheep are shorn once, in September, and that is all the wool there is until the next spring. A shed full of fleece has to become everything, so we grade the lot on the table the day it comes off. The long, fine staple goes to blankets and scarves. The shorter stuff goes to cot blankets and cushions. What is too coarse, or too full of veld, gets carded into rug weft where nobody minds and it wears better than the good wool anyway. Nothing gets held back for next year.
Weft is two looms in a converted shearing shed on the Aberdeen road, twenty minutes out of Graaff-Reinet. Susan Bezuidenhout weaves, her son Petrus warps and finishes, and a neighbour in Jansenville scours and dyes for us when there is enough to justify the water. The wool comes off three farms we can drive to before lunch. The mohair comes off one, because good kid hair is harder to find than people think. We have never bought a bale we did not see on the floor first.
We supply about twenty shops. Tell us where yours is and roughly how much shelf you can give it, and we will send the wholesale list and what is still on the loom.
