Raw Material: Working Wool in the West

If you’re a shearer, a shepherd, a sheep owner, a weaver, a knitter, a felter, or otherwise invested in wool production or fiber art, then of course you’ll be joining those flocking (sorry) to the bookstore for Raw Materials: Working Wool in the West. I am none of those things. I don’t even read nonfiction for fun. And yet I couldn’t put this book down.True, it’s about the economics of wool production and comes packed with the kind of data analysis that usually puts me to sleep. But I became invested in that data via some strong story lines (spoiler alert) and a cast of compelling characters.First, there’s the author herself. Starting with an innocent question (Why can’t I find local yarn?), she ends up swapping her desk job in the city for the fulfillment and community of work on the land. Her stories about shearing introduce us to other shearers, to small farmers, and to the sheep themselves. (The “Aww…” factor here made me want to head to Meridian Jacobs to hang out with the sheep.) Their stories are skillfully woven into the broader stories, like those about wool mills and carbon farming and cycles of fire and flood. And finally there’s the story of the wool: the different types, what is required to process it, the possible benefits of sheep farming for the land and for the larger environment.The book was particularly poignant for me as a resident of northern California; Wilkes’ storytelling brought to life the acres I speed by on my way to the Bay Area, to Redding, Shasta, Gualala, Napa, northeastern California, and Reno. I also learned things about slow money and nurture capital and the impact of synthetic dyes—things that are likely to impact my buying decisions.But all in all this is a love story entwined (sorry) with other love stories—love for the sheep and the shearing and love of the land, of one’s own community, and of the earth. So, if you’re looking for a good yarn (again, sorry) and are not afraid to be inspired, make Raw Materials your next read.

I am a retired university professor, art historian and writer. I read this book because I am also a fiber artist who buys wool roving to spin and felt with. After reading it, I will never complain about the cost of wool fiber or yarn again. NEVER. Wilkes is an excellent writer who gives us insight into the valiant community of sheep shearers, sheep raisers, and small-scale wool processors. People who work 18 hours a day in all weather, up to their knees in urine-soaked hay and muck, and emerge bloody and smiling, and do not regret having turned in their office jobs for this work. You can read it as a memoir, or as an ethnography of a subculture most of us know nothing about, even if we like our hand-knitted sweaters and scarves. A brilliant job.

This is the best, and possibly most honest book about working with wool. I read it as a library book and enjoyed it so much, I purchased my own copy.

It's well-known among book publishers that it's not the subject that makes the book; it's the author. Stephany Wilkes' Raw Material brought me into a world I'd never even thought about: how the fleece on a sheep's back becomes clothing, and made me care so much I was laughing and gasping out loud at her tales. Her sheep shearing saga starts when, as an avid knitter, she tries to find locally sourced wool near her home in San Francisco. She doesn't find any, but she does find a local fiber cooperative. There she learns about sheep shearing school, which changes her life. She learns to shear, practices and apprentices on the weekends and days off for a year, goes to sheep shearing school again, and gets more and more involved in the wool-producing world of Northern California, something that I, a native, never knew existed.It's the best kind of armchair travel there is, going deep into a world geographically under my feet but miles away from my experiences. Her growing love and care for sheep and the agriculture that surrounds them made me love them too. Just like Michael Lewis with baseball in Moneyball, Dava Sobel with Longitude, and John McPhee with seismology in Assembling California, Stephany Wilkes brings an esoteric world alive.

As a shepherd and a trained sheep shearer, I can tell you that Stephany Wilkes book is spot-on on what it's like to learn to shear sheep for someone not born into it. The fear, the exhaustion, and the full-on revolting state shearing leaves you in are all elegantly and honestly written. Her book details the many, many, many, many obstacles facing modern shepherds and the people that support them from shearers to wool brokers to land owners and mill operators.Stephany gives concise and easy to understand explanations into the many scientific reasons that wool is so amazing without dumbing things down (which I adore her for). She gives faces and stories to the people who supply this country with fiber and food without making their stories trite or commercialized.If you are at all interested in wool, or even agriculture in any form, get this book. You won't regret it.

She’s to the point and clear. Outstanding book.

I once raised sheep. After reading Raw Material I better appreciate all these creatures offer--from their wooly warmth that varies with fineness of their fleeces to their contribution to integrated management of vineyards that yield my one of my favorite beverages of choice. Thanks to Stephany Wilkes for her thorough and thoughtful consideration of all it takes to bring fiber to our closets. It's obvious the author has indeed found her "antidote to alienation" through her dedication to shearing and to the remarkable characters she comes to know so well and shares with us with such delight.