You'd think with all the sheep in Ireland it would have been easy to make 100% Irish wool products, but for us its something that is only just becoming possible. Even 5 years ago we couldn't convince any of the mills to sell us scoured wool for our felt animals filling as it was more valuable to process it right through to their own finished products. Not that many of the mills were even using much Irish wool, it being notoriously coarse.
A couple of years ago Donegal Yarns agreed to purchase the entire year's clip from the Galway Wool Co-op and we were able to start buying scoured Galway wool for our filling. Only last year could more processed Galway tops be sourced for the outside layers of our creatures and for making flat sheets of felt for features.
We started working on some 100% Galway versions of some of our felt animals slowly in the background and have finally put them out on our shelves and online with their own branding and labelling. It's hard work to felt, taking us longer to make each component and the coarseness of the wool is hardly reflected in the price we pay to get it, so these do retail a bit higher than our main range.
