Sources for wool kilt hose, traditional colors?

[tubino]

Has anyone found a great source for mostly wool kilt hose, not thick? Prefer a USA source. It’s easy to find cheap ones from Pakistan, and very good ones for $30-$40. Are there good wool ones for ~$20/pair?

[Steve Ashton]

It's really odd. Wool prices for spun yarn and finished goods are at some of the highest prices in history.
But if you are in the business of raising sheep, and you do not sell raw fleeces by the ton to large commercial mills, it is almost impossible to find mills to process your fleeces.
Small mills are closing daily. Some due to competition and some just because the owners are getting older and new folks don't want to continue doing that type of work.
I know of many family sized sheep farms that shear their sheep and the fleeces go into the garden as mulch. There are organizations in the US and Canada trying to keep interest in the fiber industry. There are some small to medium mills still going but it is a yearly worry where they will be able to sell the next shearing.

If you want yarns spun hard, worsted and tight for kilt fabric you can find it. At the premium prices the large spinning mills turn out in the hundred of thousands of pounds per week.
If you want yarns for knitting or for crochet you can find them. Again from the large spinning mills.

It is a real eye opener when you Google - N. American wool spinning mills.

[Tobus]

I know of many family sized sheep farms that shear their sheep and the fleeces go into the garden as mulch.

Wow, what a shame. Those people need to get in touch with the craft yarn community. There are a lot of people who spin and dye their own yarns for knitting, and to sell it. Small-batch home-spun yarn is really popular. Websites like Ravelry are set up where they can market their products, and they love to find local sources for wool. From what I've seen, this is a growing trend. It would seem like a natural fit for small sheep farms who can't scale their operations for industrial buyers.

[tubino]

I learned that the Toronto store of William Glen & Sons has Thistle brand hose from Hawick Scotland, 80% wool, for a pretty good price with the current conversion rate to US dollars.

[Steve Ashton]

Wow, what a shame. Those people need to get in touch with the craft yarn community. There are a lot of people who spin and dye their own yarns for knitting, and to sell it. Small-batch home-spun yarn is really popular. Websites like Ravelry are set up where they can market their products, and they love to find local sources for wool. From what I've seen, this is a growing trend. It would seem like a natural fit for small sheep farms who can't scale their operations for industrial buyers.

To give you a little background.

I am in the craft yarn world. I knit kilt hose, other socks, and other various items like toques and comfort dolls on my Hand-Cranked Circular Sock Machine. I teach and demonstrate.



I am the inventor and maker of The Wizards Winder.



My Wife is a spinner, dyer, knitter and weaver. She starts with raw fleece, cleans, retts, fulls, combs, spins, and knits or weaves with the yarn. There are 4 spinning wheels and 4 looms in my home.
My wife is the president of our local Hand Knitters and Spinners Guild.
She is active in the world-wide "Shave 'em to Save 'em" movement.
She is active in the HRH sponsored "Campaign for Wool" with its Canadian branch "Canadian Wool Council".
And the "CanadianWool.org"
We are both on Ravelry.

We have seen local spinning mills go under in just the last few years. One went under with 3 years worth of small farmers' fleeces still sitting, waiting for processing.
This is just one of those mills.


The problem is not the craft spinners, dyers, knitters, and weavers. It is at the processing level of the chain. It is just not profitable, or even sustainable, to process wool at the less than industrial level anywhere in the world today.
Herds of sheep raised for their wool are being culled on a daily basis simply because there is nowhere to sell fleeces, or find a mill to process the fleeces. Even a small herd of 25-50 sheep must be sheared twice a year and can produce over 1000 lbs of raw fleece a year. If you can't sell those fleeces or find somewhere to process them, you must get rid of the sheep because you can't even afford to pay the shearer. (of which there are fewer and fewer. It is a skilled trade that no one wants to get into anymore.) If you do not shear the sheep, they die.

[Father Bill]

Thanks for that background, Steve.

It sounds to me like the same problem we're facing in so many areas: our generational demographics are such, that there are more older and even elderly people like me who require, consume, and demand goods and services than there are in the generation of labourers, leaders, organizers, or in the generation who will, in turn replace them in the years to come in the immediate future. In short, more consumers than producers.

The results are being seen today in health care, in education and training, in sales, and in so many other fields, like wool production.

This problem was never unforseen. Those in the employment and training sectors have been predicting this for thirty years or more. A very good primer on this is Foot and Stoffman, Boom Bust and Echo, and its sequel Boom Bust & Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century (1996).

These books are not technically written, and even explain such interesting things as why girls born just after the Baby Boom were considered prettier than those born at the beginning of it, even with identical faces. If you think that finding a solution for sheep is challenging, just consider that one!

Again, thanks Steve.

[Steve Ashton]

I am a fan of the TV presenter Mike Rowe. His MikeRoweworks.org publish some very interesting ideas. One of his quotes is - " A good paying, rewarding job does not always require a 4 year degree."

And "America has become slowly but undeniably disconnected from the most fundamental elements of civilization—food, energy, education, and the very nature of work itself.
Over the last 30 years, America has convinced itself that the best path for the most people is an expensive, four-year degree. Pop culture has glorified the “corner office job” while unintentionally belittling the jobs that helped build the corner office.

As a result, our society has devalued any other path to success and happiness. Community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs are labeled as “alternative.” Millions of well-intended parents and guidance counselors see apprenticeships and on-the-job training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for the brass ring: a four-year degree. The push for higher education has coincided with the removal of vocational arts from high schools nationwide. And the effects of this one-two punch have laid the foundation for a widening skills gap and massive student loan debt."

He says "America is lending money it doesn't have, to kids who can't pay it back, to train them for jobs that no longer exist. That's nuts."

The phrase "Work Ethic" is seen by many people as a dirty word, as something you don't talk about, because if you do you end up coming across like an old angry man shaking his fist at the younger generation.

And yet, according to current US employment figures, of those who currently do not have a job, a growing number are not unemployed, they are simply not looking for, or want to work. They will not take a job of any kind if offered it.

Since Covid the number of jobs that are available, but unfilled, has soared over 40%.

This morning one of the big news articles has the headline, "Bare minimum Monday as a form of self-care." And the presenters on TV are praising that as a good thing. As "good mental health", as something to aspire to and make into the societal norm so we can all feel better about doing less.

The biggest lie of my generation was the posters that were in every High School Guidance Counselors' office. It showed a guy or girl in academic robes holding their brand new diploma. The caption was "Work smarter, not harder". Like you were the smart one and that piece of paper had just solved all of your life's troubles.
That has caused a skills gap.
How many unemployed degree holders do you know? Ever seen an unemployed plumber or electrician or carpenter? Most trades earn high 6 figure annual incomes. And if they could cram just a couple more hours onto the 24 hour day they could easily bump that into 7 figures.

Work is not the enemy and work in the trades is not menial labor. The guidance counselor poster should have read - "Work Smart, Learn A Skill, Master That Skill, Then Work Your Butt Off Doing It."

[Steve Ashton]

There is the story of a young, 14 year old boy, living in a small African village. One month of the year some Peace Corps volunteers would visit his village. They would warn the villagers how the village was dying. Drought would soon kill them and all their animals. They were offering kids scholarships to attend schools and then college in Germany. When the boy asked what he could learn, they told him of all the opportunities that could make his life better after he got his degree.

While his family could no longer afford to send him to school due to the drought the boy had always asked a lot of questions and was good at fixing stuff. But as he did not speak German and could not understand how or why someone would live somewhere where the rain fell as solid ice he did not want to go. He also felt that if the Peace Corps kids with their college degrees were telling the truth, by the time he got back in 4 or 5 years the crops would have died and blown away and his village and family would be gone.

He knew of an old guy of the hippy generation that lived 2 villages away that gave him an old Mother Earth News and he would sneak into his old school library where he found an 8th grade text book, Using Energy by Mary Atwood with a photo of wind generators on the cover.

Using a tractor fan, shock absorbers, PVC pipes, a bicycle frame and anything else he could lay his hands on, he then built a rudimentary wooden tower, plonked his home-made generator on the top, and eventually got one, and then four bulbs to light up. He is now known as "the boy who harnessed the wind"

By the time the Peace Corps came back the next year, his village had computers with the internet. The villagers could watch Netflix under electric lights at night. The crops in the village fields were irrigated with an electric pump and a well where the entire village could get clean drinking water that flowed right into their homes.

That boy, now a young man, tries to close the skills gap by traveling to other villages, on a bicycle with a cart holding old PVC pipe and old bicycle parts and teaches others how to build homemade wind powered electrical generators. He has been featured in a movie with Chiwetel Ejiofor, met Al Gore and stood on stage with Bono. Not too bad for a kid who's family could not afford to let him finish the 8th grade, and instead dug through trash heaps to find parts he could use.

[tubino]

Hi, I asked about cheap socks and inadvertently started a cool thread about sheep, wool, hand skills, the alienation of labor (but in non-Marxist terms), the value of trades, and the value of ingenuity in one's environment. That's pretty cool.

Original topic reply: I found some 80% wool kilt hose in the right bottle green for $25 US at William Glen and Sons in San Francisco. The website is worthless but the Toronto branch is better and both Paul in SF and Darren in Toronto are very helpful.

[piperalpha]

To give you a little background.

I am in the craft yarn world. I knit kilt hose, other socks, and other various items like toques and comfort dolls on my Hand-Cranked Circular Sock Machine. I teach and demonstrate.



I am the inventor and maker of The Wizards Winder.



My Wife is a spinner, dyer, knitter and weaver. She starts with raw fleece, cleans, retts, fulls, combs, spins, and knits or weaves with the yarn. There are 4 spinning wheels and 4 looms in my home.
My wife is the president of our local Hand Knitters and Spinners Guild.
She is active in the world-wide "Shave 'em to Save 'em" movement.
She is active in the HRH sponsored "Campaign for Wool" with its Canadian branch "Canadian Wool Council".
And the "CanadianWool.org"
We are both on Ravelry.

We have seen local spinning mills go under in just the last few years. One went under with 3 years worth of small farmers' fleeces still sitting, waiting for processing.
This is just one of those mills.


The problem is not the craft spinners, dyers, knitters, and weavers. It is at the processing level of the chain. It is just not profitable, or even sustainable, to process wool at the less than industrial level anywhere in the world today.
Herds of sheep raised for their wool are being culled on a daily basis simply because there is nowhere to sell fleeces, or find a mill to process the fleeces. Even a small herd of 25-50 sheep must be sheared twice a year and can produce over 1000 lbs of raw fleece a year. If you can't sell those fleeces or find somewhere to process them, you must get rid of the sheep because you can't even afford to pay the shearer. (of which there are fewer and fewer. It is a skilled trade that no one wants to get into anymore.) If you do not shear the sheep, they die.

Do you make Gairloch pattern hose?