Fabric Cost

[Brian Rose]

The next time one of us complains about the cost of tartan, consider this. I was at a friend's farm yesterday for shearing day. It's a small farm so only about 20 sheep were sheared. Most were sheared in about 15 minutes. The average ewe contributed about 5 lbs. ( roughly 2.2 kilos) of wool. The one rescue ewe that hadn't been sheared in two years had 10 lbs ( 4.5 kilos). That's before processing- carding and spinning. There's a lot more to do before one gets to tartan cloth.
She uses it for felting and sells some raw wool. All the leftover little chunks get swept up and sold as wadding for muzzle loaders.