Knitter and farmer Verity Slee enjoys working with naturally dyed wool, and when her usual provider stopped supplying, she took to the kitchen stove at her Finniss farm to create her own.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
She now sells that "beautifully soft" wool on their Nomad Farms website, alongside their pasture-fed, regeneratively raised chicken and beef.
In the past year, her and partner Tom Bradman have also started running Polwarth sheep, with the wool retained for Ms Slee's side hustle.
Polwarths are a dual-purpose breed, bred from a Lincoln-Merino cross.
"We previously had Merinos, and sold the wool on the commodity market," she said.
"As a knitter myself, I had been buying in Polwarth wool from an SA stud breeder [Wirreanda Farm at Mount Crawford].
"We trialed using the wool for a bit before deciding to commit to buying our own sheep."
They initially bought 30 sheep from Wirreanda in April last year, and have just gone through their second lambing cycle, while a ram was bought a few months ago from Taljar Polwarth stud on Kangaroo Island "to mix up genetics".
"We try to target both wool and meat genetics, with the intention of one day also selling the lamb," Ms Slee said.
The sheep are run regeneratively, alongside about 130 cows and "thousands of chickens" on the 285-hectare farm. The couple also lease a further 100ha.
"Our livestock are 100 per cent grass fed, pasturefed and organically raised," Ms Slee said.
"We don't buy feed in, except for the chickens. Even this year, we haven't."
Ms Slee said the aim was to build their Polwarth numbers up to about 200 to produce enough wool for the on-farm business.
"I just had about 400 kilograms of greasy wool processed, which should last me a couple of years, but there is the intention to keep growing," she said.
"However this year has been tougher than the previous two, which I suspect is because of the financial cost of living that everyone's struggling with and they're less inclined to buy premium products."
Ms Slee said she got into producing her own wool seven years ago, after having children.
"I had learned about chemical dyes, so I wanted to find a safer option to knit clothes for my children," she said.
"I was purchasing plant-dyed wool from a lady in NSW - it was the only place I could get it in Australia - and she bought it from India, where they use the more traditional natural dyes.
"But then she stopped doing that, so I started experimenting at home with local plants, like eucalypt and acacias, and some food waste, like avocados.
"I would buy undyed wool, all different types, but I found I preferred the Polwarth wool.
"Polwarth wool has got a beautiful handle, it's very warm and soft and to knit with.
"Once people start knitting or crocheting with it, they love using it, because it is very soft."
Ms Slee said she went through "hundreds and hundreds" of different color samples, with 10 folders of what worked and what did not.
"It took a lot of research," she said.
"Before I started selling it, I just did so many batches of trials, so I have hundreds and hundreds of samples trying to get consistent colors.
"It's been a really big learning curve and still is, but there's not many people using local plants.
"The ones I've selected hold up really well in the sun, hold up well in the wash and are consistently available."
Three years ago, she put her first lines of naturally-dyed wool on their farm website.
"My first ever wool customer was actually one of our meat buyers," she said.
"A lot of our customers were already known to us as buyers of our other products.
"They buy it because they want to buy something that's natural. The sheep are also regeneratively raised.
"Then I got stocked in some shops and it has slowly grown since. Each year I try to add more colours."
Ms Slee said another unique aspect was the wool was processed entirely in Australia.
Bendigo Woollen Mill undertakes the spinning and plying, while Cashmere Connections does the carding and combing, both in Vic.
"It's more expensive than your stock, standard yarn that's processed overseas, and most of those costs come from the processing," she said.
"It is not cheap or easy to get yarn processed in Australia - that's probably what makes it special.
"People also like the story behind the wool, of it being raised and processed locally, and then, of course, the no chemical input, and the natural dyes.
"But people also have to be aware that because it has no chemicals in it, there has to be more care taken when washing and drying products using our wool."
The past three years, workshops have also been run at Nomad Farms to teach others about the natural wool dying process, including indigo dyes.
"Indigo is a very old traditional dye plant. It's not soluble in water, and is a whole other process in itself," Ms Slee said.
"The Indigo powder I use is from India, but we use a lot of Japanese dying methods."
Ms Slee said one day they may consider buying coloured Polwarths for more variety.
"You can get black and taupe coloured sheep, and once you dye that wool, you can get some really beautiful colours," she said.
Alisha Fogden
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
