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11.10.2010

hometown pride

little rhody, i'm so proud. i just ordered mine. go here for a great video on rhody warm blankets. click here to order one for your rustic, hot chocolate fueled winter! here is the text from the article in design new england magazine. link to it here. all of my friends can expect one on the nearest holiday!

Sustainability takes many forms, few as comforting — in both a tactile and soulful way — as the Rhody Warm blankets produced in Rhode Island. It started with sheep, as so many things in Rhode Island have over the centuries. Sheep have grazed its seaside meadows since the 1600s, on land graced by dry-laid stone walls that can still be seen today. Exports of wool, mutton, and cheese (yes, sheep cheese) formed the basis of the colony's earliest commerce and are said to have brought the state out of the economic plight that followed the Revolutionary War.
So it rankled Polly Hopkins when in the 1980s and‘90s there was so little demand for sheep's wool that farmers were literally throwing it away. “We used it as mulch in our garden for a few years,” says Hopkins, a third-generation sheep producer who is president of the Rhode Island Sheep Cooperative, a group of farmers dedicated to finding markets for local sheep products.
As Hopkins and other Rhode Island farmers watched the demand for wool decrease, partly due to the popularity of synthetics such as Polarfleece, they did some brainstorming. They had some success selling yarn for hand-spinning and knitting, which were both experiencing a resurgence, but found that the yarn took only a fraction of the hundreds of pounds of wool the Ocean State produced each year.
“We're creative; we find other ways to sell wool,” says Don Minto, a sheep producer who, with his wife, Heather, manages Watson Farm in Jamestown, Rhode Island, a 265-acre property with a 1796 farmhouse owned by Historic New England. In 2006, Hopkins, the Mintos, and other farmers collaborated on procuring a government grant to finance the initial costs for producing an undyed soft wool blanket made entirely from local fleece — and Rhody Warm was born.
It was an immediate success. The 2006 blanket featured a win-dowpane pattern in gray and off-white. “We placed an ad for it in the local paper on a Thursday in mid-December,” recalls Don Minto, “and the blankets sold out by Sunday!”
That first year, 19 Rhode Island sheep producers collected 1,600 pounds of wool to produce 371 blankets in sizes ranging from crib to king. Since then, says Hopkins, as many as 65 local producers have contributed wool, and as many as 600 blankets have been produced in a given year. “It goes up and down, depending on how much wool is produced,” says Hopkins.
The blanket production sequence that began in 2006, a lengthy and geographically circuitous one, is still followed. The animals are shorn in late spring, and in June the sheep producers gather to “skirt” the fleece, that is, remove matted sections and sort it by color. White, nonwhite, gray, and black fleece are bagged separately and shipped to a wool scouring facility in South Carolina (no such facility remains in New England). “The wool comes back clean and fluffy,” says Hopkins. At this point, the blanket design is discussed. “Only after we see the wool washed and carded do we know what percentage of light and dark we have, and then we can plan the design,” says Heather Minto, who is not only a sheep producer but a textile designer as well.
A small windowpane pattern with a natural background and oxford grey panes was chosen for the 2010 blanket (past patterns include buffalo plaid and herringbone). After the pattern is committed to paper, the washed wool is shipped to a mill in Massachusetts, where it is spun into yarn. Another textile mill in Massachusetts weaves the yarn into cloth, which is shipped to a Rhode Island mill where it is cut into various sizes, the edges are finished, and the Rhody Warm label is added. The final products range in size from lap throw ($80) to king size ($225), and this year, shawls and dog coats are also being offered.
“We like to get the blankets back to the farmers by late October, so they can sell them in November,” says Hopkins, who says the blankets are a favorite holiday or wedding gift. As for the sheep, well, they're still grazing, and that's the way it should be in Rhode Island.

HOMEGROWN BLANKETS
Long before “locally grown,” “sustainable,” and “neutral palette” were part of the consumer vocabulary, New Englanders used simple blankets in whites, grays, and browns to ward off the chill. They had to — there weren't other choices. Today, in addition to Rhode Island, several other New England states are again making wool blankets from their locally raised sheep.
RHODE island
Rhody Warm blanket,
risheep.org
CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Blanket Project,
ctsheep.org
MASSACHUSETTS
Baaay State Blanket Project,
worcestersheep.com
VERMONT
Vermont Fiberworks Blanket,
vermontsheep.org

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