How Is Wool Yarn Made?
- Wool being shorn off a sheep.mouton tondu image by Philippe LERIDON from Fotolia.com
The wool you use to make your crochet or knitting projects comes from sheep. The main producers of wool today are located in New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and South Africa, although another variety is shorn from sheep in Iceland. This wool is very scratchy, but it has the advantage of being strong.
Some farms in the U.S. also produce wool; the wool coats are shorn once a year before they are processed and made into yarn. - Wool sock after the wool has been manufactured.wool sock image by Alex Motrenko from Fotolia.com
Some farmers time sheep-shearing to take place just before sheep give birth to their lambs, which happens in early spring. The belief is that the ewe who no longer has her woolen coat will stay inside out of cold temperatures and wind, thus protecting herself and her lamb from the elements because she no longer has her protective coat, according to the Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill. - The earliest surviving woolen item dates from about 1500 B.C. This item was found in a Danish bog.
A fine woolen fabric dating to about the fifth century B.C. was located in a Greek colony, according to Amy Pang, associate editor of the Vintage Voice. - Yarn made from wool is very absorbent and is able to hold up to 25 percent of its weight in moisture. This property helps the person wearing the item stay warm. Because the moisture in the wool evaporates slowly, the person doesn't get cold, according to Pang.
The different textures of wool, ranging from the finest merino to the thickest and coarsest fiber, can be used to create a wide range of items such as baby clothing or carpets that can withstand wear and tear. - The beginning of wool manufacturing begins with the sheep-shearing. The wool coat, now called a fleece, is cleaned to remove the natural oils, vegetable matter and dirt. While wool contains beneficial oils such as lanolin, it also contains other oils that have to be removed in a process called "scouring," which is repeated washing in a special detergent.
The edges or "tags" of the fleece are trimmed--these tags come from the back end, legs and the stomach of the sheep and are too dirty to be made into yarn, according to the Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill. During this process, the different grades of wool are separated--short wool from long wool and coarse wool from fine wool.
Once the wool has been washed and dried, it's "picked" or "teased" to open up the different locks of wool, turning it into a web of fiber. During this process a special oil is added to the wool so the fibers will move against each other more easily and stick to each other during the wool processing.
Next, the fibers are combed several times in the "carding" process. Small hand cards that look like the brushes used on dogs comb the wool. Large wool producers use machine driven drums to comb the wool.
The next step is called "roving", or dividing the web of wool into smaller strips called "pencil rovings". These rovings are wound on large spools positioned at the end of the carding drums.
During the "spinning" part of the process, the "twist" is put into the yarn rovings, making the wool fibers into the yarn used in fiber crafts. The spun yarn is collected on bobbins, then placed onto a cone winder. From this point, the yarn is moved into paper cones for use in knitting and weaving machines. This wool is also formed into the skeins of wool available in hobby stores.
The yarn is then finished by washing to remove the special lubricant. The washing also helps to "set the twist" in the yarn, allowing the fibers to open and fluff out.
