Talking to sixth generation farmers like George Atkins (who runs Field Farm in Hockwold cum Wilton), she learnt how little we value rare breeds wool in the UK. Which she thought was criminal. ‘So I decided to do something about it and produce a beautiful yarn that is Norfolk, through and through.’

In 2014 Jenn created Fibreworkshop, working with a number of different flocks to produce a yarn that is perfect for knitted outer wear.

‘It’s great for gloves, scarves, sweaters and cardigans,’ she tells me. ‘Its natural colour is oatmeal flecked with chocolate, but it has a soft pearlescent lustre (shine) which means it easily absorbs the natural plant dyes I use.’

Jenn with her dyed yarn. Photo: contributed by Jess Morency Justin Lee. Photo: contributed by Jess Morency A few years later, Justine Lee had a similar epiphany about the undiscovered beauty of British rare breeds wool. Based in London, for 30 years she’d had a successful career in the fashion industry, designing knitwear for some of Britain’s best-known brands.

She’d worked with cashmere when it was still a niche product, combed from goats found only in the mountains of Mongolia, and helped a fashion company grow from employing just four people to more than 100, due in part to the success of the designs she turned out with ever-increasing speed. But then, in 2019, she picked up a book, Fashionopolis, The Price of Fast Fashion, by Dana Thomas, and it completely changed her way of thinking.

Sitting in her garden studio in West London, Justine shows me her battered copy, flipping through the pages to share some key facts. ‘Did you know that 20% of a 100 billion items of clothing go unsold, shredded or incinerated,’ she says. ‘Or that in the UK, around 9,500 garments are dumped into British landfill every five minutes; making textiles the country’s fastest growing waste-stream.’

Balls of rare breed wool. Photo: contributed by Jess Morency Keen to do more research, she soon discovered that a worldwide desire for cheap cashmere means that goats have now taken over much of the flatlands of Mongolia, putting its human population at risk of famine. And that farmers with vast flocks in Australia now give their sheep artificial feed as there’s no more grass. The more she read, the more she felt she had to do something to help........

© Eastern Daily Press