It's nine days until the start of Wool Week, the annual celebration of the bit of a sheep that doesn't end up in a pie or a lamb rogan josh (though I've tasted examples of both which would make you think the whole animal really had gone in, fleece and all).
Prince Charles likes to get behind it - Wool Week, I mean - and of course the fashion industry, which would be left shivering without the stuff, promotes wool as a luxury product. It really is worth baaahing about, in other words.
As happened last year, the organisers of Wool Week have chosen a handful of young fashion designers to work with a selection of retailers, among them Top Man, Folk, Brora, Marks & Spencer and Margaret Howell. Their efforts will go into production and be available to buy as part of the Wool School project.
As luck would have it, Monday also sees the start of Shetland Wool Week. From October 7, everyone's favourite treeless archipelago plays host to wool-themed events, including a drop-in knitting clinic, demonstrations of wool sorting and grading, and a Can Ewe Find Wir Peerie Sheep? scavenger hunt. Someone book me a flight, quick.
I'm not sure if these events will be introduced by a mandatory rendition of The Proclaimers' Over And Done With - "Shetland made her jumpers and the devil made her features," goes the song's most memorable line - or a showing of Sunshine On Leith, in which the song features. But if they don't, they should.
Among the artisans who will feature are Nielanel, a knitwear studio at Sandwick in the South Mainland. They make "artwear" rather than knitwear and also sell yarns with names such as Lamb Attack. All they need now is for a TV detective to start wearing their jumpers and they could be Scotland's answer to Gudrun and Gudrun, who provide Sarah Lund's distinctive knits in Danish drama The Killing. Shetland Wool Week also has a guest patron, Felicity Ford, a textile designer and sound artist whose recent works include Hurd, "a hand-knitted sound system" incorporating recordings of sheep.
So if hand-knitted headphones are possible - Bleats by Dre, anyone? - we should probably be welcoming wool into other parts of our wardrobes besides the jumper and sock drawers. Casting around for prospective inductees I'm quite taken by valenki felt boots, a traditional Russian boot made from boiled wool. They're either the new Uggs or the most eccentric pair of baffies you'll ever see. I've also found some rather nice woollen underwear made by British surf label Finisterre, whose Bowmont Project uses wool from Devon's Bowmont Merino sheep. Their boldly-coloured boxers and longjohns even come with "detailed Corozo nut buttons". I'm not sure what they are exactly, but it's going to be worth the rather hefty price-tag to find out.
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