Batch Innes-1
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BATCH INNES-1 is a new approach for us, and for Innes Ranch!
Until 2024, all our Fabric Batches have contained wool from the shearing of a single year and multiple ranches. But Batch Innes-1 Fabric is to be made 100% from Innes Ranch fiber. Innes Ranch produces roughly 20,000 pounds (9000 kg) of raw wool per year. Combining the 2023 and 2024 Innes clips gets us to a total quantity large enough to meet the "custom top minimum" imposed by Chargeurs.
In order to make our own warp (which is worsted) yarn, we need to provide our own "combed top" to Kentwool Yarns, who does the spinning for us. Annnnnd ... in order to make top from 100% WeatherWool Certified Fine Wool, we need to send to Chargeurs, generally, 40,000 pounds (18,141 kg) of greasy. This year, though, Diego Paullier, who runs the Chargeurs Plant in South Carolina, let me skate a little on the usual minimum because I'm sending Batch 10 and Batch Innes-1 at the same time, for a total of about 70,000 pounds (31,746 kg).
Bob Innes has been running sheep his whole life, and he is now in his 70s. (We have a video of Bob and me talking things over at the Innes Ranch in late March, 2024.) Until he began to work with us in 2022, he never knew what happened to his wool after he sold it. And actually that is the normal case for America's Sheep Ranchers. But with Batch 9, Bob was able to handle some Fabric made partly with his fiber. Sometime in 2025, Bob will hopefully be wearing garments made from Batch Innes-1 ... garments made solely from his own fiber.
The Innes-1 Batch Tags will be different from all previous Batch Tags, which are small simple tags, located under the size tag, and bearing a number signifying the Batch. The Innes-1 Batch Tags will be more like a label than a tag. We haven't decided yet exactly how the tag will look, but it will bear the following info:
- Fabric Batch Innes-1
- perhaps 2023-2024
- Gillette, Wyoming
- One of the Innes Brands. Innes Ranch has three different brands officially registered with the State of Wyoming. These Brands can only be used with permission, which Bob has granted to us
We probably won't have any Innes-1 Fabric until March of 2025. But ... we'll see!!
We are scheduled to begin processing Batch Innes-1 by the end of October, 2024.
3 October 2024 --- Ralph