Hellooo! How wonderful that you’ve come all the way to the Frisian Museum of Agriculture to visit us!
Eh, well, we eh…
Moo, yes wonderful! I love telling visitors all about ourselves and our legendairy milk production.
Wel, eh, that sounds udderly fascinating…
…but we’re a bunch of knitters and spinners, and we’re actually here today for your colleagues the sheep, and the 100% Wol exhibition.
Baa, did I hear someone say sheep? Welcome!
I’m more than happy to tell ewe about ourselves and especially our wool.
Happy? We thought it’d be all gloom and doom, what with your wool ending up in waste incinerators or being shipped off to China as a waste product.
Oh, that! Yes, that’s too baad. But in the grand scheme of things it’s just a temporary blip. Think of all those centuries that our wool was a highly valuable commodity. We have a few items from the past here that’ll give you an idea.
There’s this interesting teasel brush, used to raise the nap on woollen cloth. So much care was taken for a perfect finish.
And here are some spindle stones from the 15th to 18th centuries. It must have taken so much time to spin our wool this way. People wouldn’t have put all this time and effort into it unless they thought the end product was really worth it.
A lot of care has also gone into knitting these woollen mittens. And they were valuable enough to the wearer to repair them time and again.
There were a few decades when people thought importing synthetic items from low-wage countries was better than using our fleeces, but let’s forget about those. Let’s look at the great initiatives now being taken using local wool.
To begin with, there’s this movement called Pleed that started with making woollen blankets and is now branching out into other projects.
And look at this wall of new products, all using our lovely fleeces.
There’s also been an experiment using locally grown woad to dye wool blue. You may already have heard about it.
And many more great initiatives are being taken. Just look around and you’ll see that the future is looking bright for us and our coats.
All’s wool that ends wool, we always say. Do come again – we have lots of woolly activities scheduled.
Or for those living too far away, there’s also a virtual tour of the museum. Thank ewe so much for your visit – it’s been such fun! Baa-bye!
O wat een leuke sfeer impressie.
Zeker de moeite waard?
De tentoonstelling loopt nog tot en met 30 oktober; als je de tijd hebt leuk om te doen.
Oh, my! Another destination on my wish-list of Netherlands travel. Thank you!
Haha, your list seems to be growing and growing…