The IX Canarian Wool Festivalwhich will take place in La Orotava between April 25 and 30, it will claim the importance of a sector “in danger of extinction”, as warned during the presentation of the program of events by the Councilor for Tourism and Heritage, Delia Escobar (CC)who will also participate in the Wool Fair as a craftswoman This appointment with the sheep farming sector in Canary Islands and in the rest of the country it will allow discovering the multiple uses of wool and its great importance for crafts.
the village mayor, Francisco Linares (CC)underlined the support of the Orotavense City Council for this initiative and also for its tenth edition in 2023, and encouraged neighbors and families to approach the Wool Fairscheduled for the 30th in the kiosk square, with more than 20 exhibitors, and the rest of the talks and workshops of the previous days. “It may be that we are risking everything in these times, perhaps it is now or never for a sector that is facing a problem such as the lack of generational change,” she warned. The Councilor for Agriculture, Livestock and Festivities of La Orotava, Alexis Pacheco (CC)also highlighted the importance of the livestock sector and the aid they require, “especially now that very difficult times are passing.”
Escobar explained that the Canarian Wool Festival is an initiative of the Entity for the Diffusion of Art and Culture (EDAC)and has the support of the Villero City Council, the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo de Tenerife and Obra Social La Caixa, among other entities. The festival starts on Monday the 25th with workshops on felting (with a needle), crochet to make bookmarks in the shape of a sheep, or spinning (on spindle or spike) in the Museum of Ibero-American Crafts. The rooms of the Museum of Ephemeral Art host on Thursday 28, the sheep brooch workshop, the initiation to wool jewelry and the flowery fabric workshop.
On Friday 29, also in the carpet museum, the activity is organized Luna Lunera, Shearing storieswith Silvia Torrents and Oscar Tiraida. On Tuesday 26 there will be a conference online titled Zagala and Rabadana nomadic shepherdessesin charge of the agricultural engineer Celia Martinez and the biologist Zuriñe Iglesias. The main course will be the Wool Fair, between 10:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., with numerous Canarian artisans from different trades (weaving, dyeing, spinning, felting, gastronomy…), who will work live. In addition, workshops will be offered and the different phases of the wool process will be shown, with four sessions of “live peeling or shearing”, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The exhibition will close on Saturday at the Ephemeral Art Interpretation Center with the tasting entitled The Sheep’s Treasuresguided by J. Enrique de Luis Bravowhich will make a tour “with the five senses” through the different products offered by the sheep.
Three indigenous breeds
The town councilor Delia Escobar (CC) recalls that of the three native breeds of sheep in the Canary Islands (the Canarian, the palm tree and the Canarian hair), “only two have the capacity to produce wool”, a product that is obtained practically without cost and that can have “a large number of uses” that will be the protagonists of the IX Canarian Wool Festival and its Wool Fair.
