Finest bale of Merino wool put aside for gown

Press, 23 January 1984, Page 13

Finest bale of Merino wool put aside for gown

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN

Superfine Merino wool grown on the property has been used by a North Otago high country family to make the cloth for a bridal gown, bridesmaids’ dresses and a dress for the mother of the bride.

Last Saturday Miss Amanda Bishop, 20, of Mount Otekaike Station, Kurow, was married in the off-white woollen bridal gown to Mr Hugh Cameron, of Otematata Station, near Lake Benmore. Pride in the Merino as the finest sheep in the world is very strong among the Bishop and Cameron families, who between them control over 35,000 Merinos in the Waitaki Valley. One of the wedding presents to Amanda and Hugh was some stud Merino sheep to start their own stud flock. But it was the woollen cloth made out of superfine, 18-micron ewe wool, which is worth $8 per kilogram at auction, which was the most

unusual feature of this high country union. The father of the bride, Mr Geoff Bishop, who has run a Merino stud on Mount Otekaike for more than 10 years, put aside a 120 kg bale of his finest wool from the last September shearing. From this wool Alliance Textiles, of Timaru, made 360 metres of cloth, some of which was left off-white for the bridal gown and other lengths dyed cornflour blue for the bridesmaids’ dresses and dove-grey for the mother of the bride. The dresses took 70 metres and were made up by Mrs Olga Dreaver at the Maid ’n Heaven bridal salon, of Christchurch. She had to make the bridal dress to an American design selected out of a magazine by Amanda Bishop.

Mrs Dreaver said that most bridal dresses are made from synthetic material and while the woollen cloth was appreciably heavier it was certainly still not too heavy, even for the hot weather

likely in North Otago at this time of the year.

The cloth was beautiful to work with, she said.

Amanda has lived at home since leaving school and is very involved in the family Merino business. Hugh Cameron is also involved in the family business of growing fine wool on Otematata Station, about 30 kilometres up the Waitaki River from Kurow. The newly-married pair will make their home on Otematata and begin Merino breeding on their own account. Over 250 guests were invited to the wedding, which was held at the homestead on Mount Otekaike last Saturday.