So Many Sweaters...
Although we spend every Summer in the Ardèche, we tend not to visit places too far away from our house. The region of the Ardèche is a very large place, and an area we haven't explored very much is up in the mountains. Today we decided to take a day trip to a town call Saint Pierreville high up in the mountains. The main reason we wanted to visit this town is because there is a co-op called Ardelaine, where wool is worked and produced into yarn.
If you remember our post about the town called the Viel Audon, Ardelaine has a very similar philosophy. In the mountains of the Ardèche, it is very common to raise sheep not only for cheese but also for their wool. But several years ago, many farmers did not know what to do with their wool because there was no one buying it. Many companies were no longer buying wool from the Ardèche because the industry moved to China. With no one buying the wool, it got to the point where people were burning it just to get rid of it. Ardelaine came about and changed all that. Today they buy all the wool from farmers, they wash it, produce yarn, and then make clothing and even mattresses. They are bringing back the art of producing wool and yarn locally.
We were given a tour of their site, showing us how they go from having wool on a sheep to having a wool sweater sold in their store. They adamently told us that not chemicals are added in the process of making the yarn, and everything is done locally. The entire town of St. Pierreville has been revived because of Ardelaine. The co-op has provided jobs, tourism, and the reintroduction of producing goods locally. Overall we had a great tour of Ardelaine, and we even bought sweaters to get cozy in for this Fall. Their store was beautiful, so many sweaters we almost wanted to try them all! We provided some photos that we were able to take of Ardelaine, hope you enjoy!
If you would like to learn more about Ardelaine we will link their website below. They have an online store, so check out some of their products!
http://www.ardelaine.fr
On the way up to the town, we saw some random sheep running around the road!
This is a photo of Ardelaine. There is a store with all the clothing they make, a restaurant where they serve local produce, and a little bookstore.
All the yarn is naturally dyed, and as you can see there is an array of colors!
