Canterbury sheep farmers making exercise mats from crossbred wool

Jane Schwass with a Kaiora Downs felted wool mat Photo / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

RNZ

With crossbred wool prices remaining low, some sheep farmers are having a serious crack at adding value to the fibre they proudly grow.

Canterbury farmers Jane and Mark Schwass are making felted wool exercise mats from their crossbred wool clip.

"A daughter brought a woollen mat home that was made offshore and imported into New Zealand for quite a significant amount of money and we thought, ooh this is something we could be thinking about!" Jane said.

Most people use the woollen mats for Yoga and Pilates, she told RNZ's Country Life.

It took a couple of years for the Schwasses, who farm near Culverden, to get their woollen exercise mats into production.

Now, once shorn, their wool is scoured in Timaru, dyed and felted in Christchurch, and then returned to their farm for cutting and labelling.

"The one thing we were quite passionate about was not having to send it away, we wanted it all processed in New Zealand," Schwass said.

Image 1 of 8: Photo / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

In between doing all of their farm work, Jane and Mark put finishing touches on the mats atop an old wool skirting table in the shearing shed.

"They'll get their non-stick backs put on, they'll get checked and shaped, but they do come back to the house to get their labels sewn on and for packaging," she said.

Members of the local Pilates class Schwass goes to in Culverden have provided useful feedback on the mats, she said.

"It was a great testing ground before we got too carried away, and several people are using them now so it's nice to see they're working."

Currently, the bulk of the wool from the Schwass's farm is sold to commercial wool buyers, but Jane's goal is for their whole clip to be made into exercise mats.

"We just value the attributes of wool and because we are aware of the environment, we just see [the value in] something that's not going into landfill when it's finished its end use".

"It's cyclic," she said.

"Produced on the land and it can go back to the land".

The soft green mats are named after the couple's farm, Kaiora Downs and are mostly sold via their website.