A Maine Coastal Tradition 

     The story of Nash Island Wool began nearly 100-years ago on a small island off the coast of Downeast Maine. 

     In 1916, four-year-old Jenny Cirone's family moved to Little Nash Island when her father became lighthouse keeper there.   She started a flock of sheep on the island and continued to care for them even after she moved her home to the nearby mainland.  When Jenny passed away in 2004, she entrusted the island and her sheep to her next-door neighbors and close friends, Alfred & Eleni Wakeman. 

     The Wakemans continue Jenny's island traditions and care for her flock of 120 or so Coopworth-Romney-Corriedale sheep just the way she always did.  Often during round-up, shearing & lambing, things are explained as being done a certain way because, "Well, that's the way Jenny always did it." 

     The flock grazes out in the open on the island all year round, thriving on the dewy grasses and rich seaweeds.  This island-lifestyle produces beautifully soft and clean, 'fog washed' white fleeces.

     In early summer, we join the Wakemans and a posse of neighbors to help shear the sheep.  After everyone is unloaded off the lobster boats, and the flock is rounded-up, sheperdess Eleni Wakeman and our two local handspinning-shearer-extraordinaires get to work.  While they shear the flock, we skirt through the newly shorn fleeces, removing seaweed and other debris.  The fleeces are sorted into grades - handspinning, lambs wool, yarn wool and felt/blanket wool, and are bundled into large burlap sacks to be hauled back to the mainland.  The most beautiful fleeces are sold to local handspinners at The Common Ground Fair, while we take home the rest to process at our mill in Monroe.  

   We hope you enjoy spinning, knitting, weaving or felting with Nash Island Wool, and feel a part of a real Maine coastal tradition.

Nash Island Lighthouse

To help support the preservation of the lighthouse on Little Nash, Starcroft donates a percentage of our sales to the Friends of Nash Island Lighthouse. 

History of the Lighthouse

Rent Jenny's House