Cranbrook’s Jen Clapin is spinning and knitting home-grown wool into blankets as heirlooms for her children

For the past three years, Cranbrook woolgrower Jen Clapin has spent countless hours on a special project close to her heart.

A true labour of love, she is spinning and then knitting her children woollen blankets from the sheep on she and her husband Jock’s pastures at Ballochmyle farm.

Each blanket — made from fleeces hand-picked by the couple’s classer at shearing time — encompasses not only the Clapin family’s long-running passion for the luxurious fibre, but Jen’s creative talents as well.

It comes as their three adult children Tom, William and Sophie pursue successful careers off-farm, and unlikely to return.

The Great Southern farm has been in the family for three generations, with Jock’s grandfather founding the Merino enterprise in 1929.

While they will not be passing the farm baton on, the blankets will be an eternal connection to the property they once called home and where they celebrated many of life’s important milestones.

Four years ago, a stroke of inspiration came to Jen, with a country music twist.

“Our children are very happily doing other things, so none of them are going to be farming,” she said.

“I actually heard Kasey Chambers being interviewed and one of her most loved possessions is a wool blanket that her mother had spun and knitted from sheep on their property.

“I have always really loved wool and done lots with it — I have a very talented mum who has always done lots of craft, sewing and knitting.

“I just thought, ‘what a great gift for each of our children to have, because it encompasses everything that Jock loves about the farm and my background as well.’”

So she dusted off her spinning wheel and revisited the passion she had given little time to in recent years, between helping on the farm and a busy nursing career.

Originally from Bunbury, Jen married Jock in 1983.

Falling in love with the country and community, she said the support network from other women and families in the area had been incredible.

“We were fortunate that quite a few of Jock’s really good mates got married within months of each other,” she said.

“So there was a real network with friends, we’d travel miles to catch up for dinners or for the kids to have a play.

“That was always great fun.

“And the older generation within the community were incredibly welcoming and supportive.”

Jen’s kind demeanour and caring nature is well-known in the region, through her past work as a nurse in Albany and Mount Barker, and later on as a diabetes educator.

“In community nursing you’re fortunate to be involved in people’s lives on a different level because often you know them and you’re working in their house rather than them coming into a centre,” she said. “So it’s a real privilege. I really loved that.”

Since retiring at the beginning of the year, she is spending more time on-farm and slowly chipping away at the blankets.

Each year during shearing, she gets their classer to pick the best six fleeces, which she spins during weekly or fortnightly catch-ups with the Porongurup Craft Group.

“It’s an eclectic group of incredibly talented and lovely women that are just so embracing of anyone new and more than happy to give you advice and help you,” she said.

Once spun, she gets to knitting the blankets, often in the evenings after dinner.

The first blanket has gone to her son William — who is getting married in the farm’s shearing shed in January — and is father to her first grandchild Rupert, who is 10 months old.

She said it was a “real privilege” to see the complete life cycle of the wool, from the sheep’s back to the family home.

“It’s a real shame not all wool growing farmers get to see their end product,” Jen said. “It’s really fabulous.”

“We care for our sheep and shear them and it gets put into bales and away it goes in on a truck and we sell it and that’s the end of it. But to actually see it processed and used is a real thrill.

“It’s such a beautiful fibre.

“It gives me a real thrill when I go to William’s house and see it and see it being used and loved.”

Taking three years to make the first blanket, and about halfway through the next one, she has set herself an achievable timeline to finish all three.

“I don’t know where the time’s gone,” she laughed. “I just chip away at it when I can.”

“They’re really excited about them and think that’s really inspiring for me.

“I said to the kids, ‘I promise I’ll have the rest of them done by the time I’m 90.’”