What’s new?
1 May 2008
Attention knitters!
The Nude Ewe: making money for meadows
Now you can knit up a piece
of Bedfordshire while helping to conserve our
meadow and grassland habitats—The Nude Ewe
is selling knitting wool spun from a local flock of
Hebridean sheep in a bid to
make conservation grazing more economically
viable for local graziers.
Sheep are used in nature conservation to maintain grassland and heathland habitats by eating bramble, shrubs and other rough vegetation, which in turn keeps these areas open, providing habitat for many plant and animal species.
Sheep must be shorn every year, which costs money, and the fleeces are almost worthless and often go to waste. The Nude Ewe is attempting to turn the waste fleece into a marketable product by spinning fleeces into yarn to be sold, with proceeds going back to the Wildlife Trust to offset shearing costs.
Nude Ewe ‘Heb’ is 100% pure wool from
the Hebridean flock at Pegsdon Hills Nature
Reserve, and is available for £3.50 per ball.
Every Nude Ewe customer will receive a
free ‘Bedfordshire scarf’ pattern. Proceeds
from the sales go to the Wildlife Trust’s
grazing project. If successful we hope to
open the project to other graziers.
Support local graziers and help them keep our countryside beautiful by visiting www.bedslife.org.uk/nude-ewe for more information or to place an order.
‘The Nude Ewe’ is a pilot partnership project between the Wildlife Trust and BedsLife, the county biodiversity forum.