Willow & Claude (an Aussie vegan knitwear brand)
Willow & Claude is a vegan knitwear brand, to help save the millions of sheep slaughtered each year for meat and wool. Profits support the work of collective fashion justice. You can also contact them for a discount if you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
This Foggy Knit jumper was named after a rescued orphaned lamb.
A Vegan Wool (made from weeds!)
Described as ‘more sustainable than dirt’, Weganool is a new type of wool made from weeds! Made in India from carefully extracted calotropis stem and pod fibres, then blended with organic cotton.
The woven material is lightweight with remarkable thermal-regulating properties, giving the warmth of wool, without animals.
Made without chemicals or waste, the material can be used to make shirts, dresses, scarves and inner linings, plus single jersey and fleece knits.
The fabric also thrives in drought-prone areas so saves water over cotton, and is good to provide jobs. It’s also dyed naturally with plants, flowers, roots, seeds and minerals.
Why Choose Plant-Based Knitting Yarns?
Although sheep do need shearing to avoid over-heating and be able to see predators, the conventional wool industry has many issues.
Some sheep are sheared too early (leading to hypothermia) and others suffer ‘mulesling’ (having chunks of skin sliced away to prevent flystrike, without painkillers). And many sheep are killed, when they get older and their wool production slows down).
If you wear wool, choose companies that don’t kill the sheep, simply shearing the wool: like vegetarian wool or sheepskins.
Pregnant sheep can sometimes roll over onto their backs, and can’t get back upright, and soon die if the farmer is not aware. Some sheep can also fall over, due to wool being waterlogged from rain.
If you see a sheep on its back, just firmly right it back, then stay with it, until rain has drained off, so it won’t happen again. Then inform your local farmer.
