Local Wool Blankets Keep You Warm This Winter!

Press Release

11/25/09

Local Wool Blankets Keep You Warm This Winter!

If you are looking to turn your heat down a few degrees this winter, one local farm has a simple solution to keep the chill off and beautify your home at the same time. Kindred Crossings LLC in North Franklin now has new wool blankets ready for immediate shipment for the holidays. These blankets are true heavyweights, incredibly soft to the touch and made to last for years to come – quality like this is hard to find these days – and lets not forget the local flair that comes with the purchase of a Connecticut Blanket!

The Connecticut Blanket is created each year through the collective effort of about 40 Connecticut shepherds working together with the Connecticut Sheep Breeders Association, Inc. Most farms allow their wool to grow for about 12 months before a qualified shearer frees the sheep of its fleece, which averages 8-12 pounds per animal depending on the breed. Each fleece is skirted by hand to remove all visible vegetative matter and debris. Wool is gathered at the University of Connecticut in June, inspected again and packed into bags resembling giant sausages for shipping to the mill for processing. The next five months entail the transformation of raw wool into a pristine blanket – scouring, carding, spinning, and weaving the blanket – before the finished blankets are ready in November.

No dyes are used to color the wool – the color is fresh off the sheep! The exact shade of gray is always a surprise, variable each year as the gray color is created from a combination of silver, black and brown fleeces grown by different breeds of sheep such as Romney, Merino or Corriedale. The white wool in the blanket is also a completely natural color contributed by breeds such as the Shropshire, Dorset, and Columbia. The diversity of breeds grown in Connecticut enable area farms to work together to build a blanket that is truly a unique product of the state.

Don’t be misled by thoughts that wool is scratchy – these blankets are a far cry from the old military blankets of years past. You’ll find the Connecticut Blanket to be luxuriously soft and incredibly well made. Blankets are currently available in Long Throws, Queens and Kings. Pricing is available online at and supplies are very limited - get yours before they are gone!

Photo of the CT Blanket & Shearer Bill Cournoyer at Kindred Crossings Farm in North Franklin