Meet The Supplier
We posted recently about expanding the felting and fibre community, wanting to meet the people who make it possible for us to make our fibre creations. Today we meet Amanda from Newmoor Barn.
Fibre 3, 2, 1
Q-3 Three types of fibre you can’t live without?
The Three fibres I can’t live without are Mohair, Zwartbles fleece and Shetland fleece
Q-2 Two tools you use all the time?
The two tools I use all the time are a drum carder and spinning wheel
Q-1 One fibre art technique you love the most?
Spinning Art Yarn
General Questions
What is your business?
We supply ethical natural fibres to fibre artists and doll makers. Our mohair is produced by our own gorgeous herd of Angora Goats and we buy sheep fleece from local farmers and small holders paying a fair price. All of our fibre is processed by hand including, washing, dyeing and carding.
We also sell 100% Vegetarian mohair scarves and bags as well as felted wall hangings, bags and purses and a wide range of hand spun art yarns all of which I create myself. We are now increasing our range to include felting and knitting tools. We also run training and workshops in traditional crafts such as spinning and pottery.
What kind of items do you sell?
Wool tops and batts; loose fleece (Raw and washed); hand spun art yarn; felting and knitting tools; felting and knitting kits; scarves; bags; purses; wall hangings and natural doll hair.
We also sell hand painted gourd bird houses (grown in Devon) and natural goats milk soap.
What do you think makes your business different from similar ones?
Our business is an ethical business that focuses on animal welfare throughout the whole process (from growing to shearing). Our Mohair is vegetarian as our animals will never go to slaughter even when their fibre is no longer financially viable and they will never go into the food chain. The sheep’s fleece we buy is only bought from local small holders and farmers where we can be sure the animals are treated with care and respect. We treat the animals that supply our fibre as we do our customers, with respect. We are trying to encourage artists to consider where their fibre comes from and if it’s natural, to consider the treatment of the animal that supplied it, there are some horrible practices going on out there.
We try to give our customers and visitors to our site a wide range of natural fibres and good information on the fibres and hope we are approachable enough that if anyone has any questions they will contact us.
Where are you located?
We have a small farm on the borders of Devon and Cornwall in the Tamar Valley in the UK. Yep, it sounds idyllic but we do have the A30 fly over running across the bottom of our land.
Where can we find you on the internet?
We are at www.newmoorbarn.co.uk
Many thanks to Amanda for taking the time to answer our questions and for being the very first in ‘Meet the Supplier’ 🙂
There really is a great selection of wool and animal fibre at Newmoor Barn, I think I counted 10 different breeds available in raw or washed fleece as well as Alpaca, Llama and Mohair. The dyed wool is really interesting too, with breeds like British Grey Faced Dartmoor, Shetland, Badger Face Torddu and Cheviot X Welsh Mountain available in tops or batts and some gorgeous Devon & Cornwall Long Wool locks. It probably has the widest range of raw and dyed wool and animal fibres I’ve come across.
If you’d like to contribute to the Felting and Fiber Studio or would just like to contact us for any reason, we now have a ‘Contact Us‘ page up at the top.
8 thoughts on “Meet The Supplier”
A very interesting read and I said “Awww” out loud at the photo of those eyes looking at the camera! It’s great to learn of your attitudes Amanda, and I’m sure a lot of hard work is needed to keep up your standards and to produce such lovely fibre-goodies. You must be either a superwoman or very tired a lot!
I agree with Lyn – you sound busy! Your fiber looks wonderful and thanks for being our first person in our “Meet the Vendor” series.
It always nice to meet someone who cares about the welfare and treatment of the animals that they need to do their work. You have some interesting breeds that are not generally available.
Wonderful post. I’m a needle felter and I only use ethically produced fibre. I fully support Newmoor Barn, and the fantastic work they do. I hope that many more producers will follow their lead and supply cruelty free fibre to the marketplace! The sooner, the better! x
Thanks 🙂
Yeah, me too. I was worried about using Merino when I found out about Mulesing, but I get mine from World of Wool and theirs is from non mulesed sheep.
Thank you for your comments its great to hear that artists are concerned about where their fibre comes from. Amanda
I was doing a Google search to find out more about vegan felting options/fibers and your page came up. I get that some folks think “humane” exploitation is ok but you absolutely cannot by definition call this vegan. :/. Please take that tag out of your search. Peace.
Get over yourself, who are you, the Vegan Police? Animals, like fibre providing animals, have been bred and ‘exploited’ for thousands of years (or more), we inherited the practise, we didn’t start it. The best people can do (apart from slaughtering all flocks-is that what you want?) is to establish and practise humane treatment of them. If you’re such a militant vegan, why are you researching felting? You sound like one of those extremists who see sheep being rooed and equate it to skinning live animals. Peace off.