Long and short hair wool at the South Central Family Farm Research Center in Boonesville, Arizona
Wool is the fibre derived from the fur of animals of the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain
species of other mammals such as goats, llamas and rabbits may also be called wool. This article deals explicitly with the
wool produced from domestic sheep.
Wool has two qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it has scales which overlap like shingles on a roof and it is
crimped; in some fleeces the wool fibres have more than 20 bends per inch. [citation needed]
Characteristics
Wool's scaling and crimp make it easier to spin and felt the fleece. They help the individual fibers attach to
each other so that they stay together. Because of the crimp, wool fabrics have a greater bulk than other textiles and retain air,
which causes the product to retain heat. Insulation also works both ways; bedouins and
tuaregs use wool clothes to keep the heat out.
The amount of crimp corresponds to the thickness of the wool fibers. A fine wool like merino
may have up to a hundred crimps per inch, while the coarser wools like karakul may have as few
as one to two crimps per inch.
Hair, by contrast, has little if any scale and no crimp and little ability to bind into yarn. On sheep, the hair part of the
fleece is called kemp. The relative amounts of kemp to wool vary from breed to breed, and make some fleeces more desirable for
spinning, felting or carding into batts for quilts or other insulating products.
Wool is generally a creamy white color, although some breeds of sheep produce natural colors such as black, brown, silver and
random mixes.
Processing
Wool straight off a sheep contains a high level of grease which contains valuable lanolin, as
well as dirt, dead skin, sweat residue, and vegetable matter. This state is known as "grease wool" or "wool in the grease".
Before the wool can be used for commercial purposes it must be scoured, or cleaned. Scouring may be as simple as a bath in warm
water, or a complicated industrial process using detergent and alkali. [1] In commercial wool, vegetable
matter is often removed by the chemical process of chemical carbonization[2]. In less processed wools, vegetable matter may be removed by
hand, and some of the lanolin left intact through use of gentler detergents. This semi-grease wool can be worked into yarn and
knitted into particularly water-resistant mittens or sweaters, such as those of the Aran
Island fishermen. Lanolin removed from wool is widely used in the cosmetics industry, such as hand creams.
After shearing, the wool is separated into five main categories: fleece (which makes
up the vast bulk), pieces, bellies, crutchings and locks. The latter four are packaged and sold separately. The quality of fleece
is determined by a technique known as wool classing, whereby a qualified woolclasser tries
to group wools of similar gradings together to maximise the return for the farmer or sheep owner.
Quality
The quality of wool is determined by the following factors, fiber fineness, length, scale structure, color, cleanliness, and
freedom from damage[3]. For example merino wool is
typically 3-5 inches in length and is very fine (between 12-24 microns[4]). Wool taken from sheep produced for meat is
typically more coarse, and has fibers are 1.5 to 6 inches in length. Damage or "breaks in the wool" can occur if the sheep is
stressed while it is growing its fleece, resulting in a thin spot where the fleece is likely to break.[5]
Wool is also separated into grades based on the measurement of the wool's diameter in microns. These grades may vary depending
on the breed or purpose of the wool. For example:
- < 17.5 - Ultrafine merino
- 17.6-18.5 - Superfine merino
- < 19.5 - Fine merino
- 19.6-20.5 - Fine medium merino
- 20.6-22.5 - Medium merino
- 22.6 < - Strong merino [4]
or
- < 24.5 - Fine
- 24.5–31.4 - Medium
- 31.5-35.4 - Fine crossbred
- 35.5 < - coarse crossbred[6]
In general, anything smaller than 25 microns can be used for garments, while coarser grades are used for outerwear or rugs.
The finer the wool, the softer it will be, while coarser grades are more durable and less prone to pilling.
History
As the raw material has been readily available since the widespread domestication of
sheep—and of goats, another major provider of wool— the use
of felted or woven wool for clothing and other fabrics characterizes some of the earliest
civilizations. Prior to invention of shears - probably in the Iron Age - the wool was plucked
out by hand or by bronze combs. The oldest European woollen textile, of ca. 1500 BCE, was preserved in a Danish bog [1].
In Roman times, wool, linen and leather clothed the European
population: the cotton of India was a curiosity that only naturalists had heard of, and silk,
imported along the Silk Road from China, was an extravagant luxury. Pliny the Elder records in his Natural History that the
reputation for producing the finest wool was enjoyed by Tarentum, where selective breeding had
produced sheep with a superior fleece, but which required special care.
In medieval times, as trade connections expanded, the Champagne fairs revolved
around the production of woollen cloth in small centers such as Provins; the network that the
sequence of annual fairs developed meant that the woollens of Provins might find their way to Naples, Sicily, Cyprus, Majorca,
Spain and even Constantinople (Braudel, 316). The wool trade developed into serious business, the generator of capital. In the
thirteenth century, the wool trade was the economic engine of the Low Countries and of
Central Italy; by the end of the following century Italy predominated, though in the 16th century Italian production turned to
silk (Braudel p 312). Both pre-industries were based on English raw wool exports— rivalled only by the sheepwalks of Castile, developed from the fifteenth
century— which were a significant source of income to the English crown, which from 1275 imposed an export tax on wool called the
"Great Custom". Economies of scale were instituted in the Cistercian houses, which had
accumulated great tracts of land during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when land prices were low and labour still
scarce. Raw wool was baled and shipped from North Sea ports to the textile cities of Flanders,
notably Ypres and Ghent, where it was dyed and worked up as cloth.
At the time of the Black Death, English textile industries accounted for about 10% of English wool production (Cantor 2001, 64);
the English textile trade grew during the fifteenth century, to the point where export of wool was discouraged. Over the
centuries, various British laws controlled the wool trade or required the use of wool even in burials. The smuggling of wool out
of the country, known as owling, was at one time punishable by the cutting off of a hand. After
the Restoration, fine English woollens began to compete with silks in the international market, partly aided by the
Navigation Acts; in 1699 English crown forbade its American colonies to trade wool with
anyone but England herself.
A great deal of the value of woollen textiles was in the dyeing and finishing of the woven product. In each of the centers of
the textile trade, the manufacturing process came to be subdivided into a collection of trades, overseen by an entrepreneur in a
system called by the English the "putting-out" system, or "cottage industry", and the Verlagssystem by the Germans. In
this system of producing woolen cloth, until recently perpetuated in the production of Harris
tweeds, the entrepreneur provides the raw materials and an advance, the remainder being paid upon delivery of the product.
Written contracts bound the artisans to specified terms. Fernand Braudel traces the
appearance of the system in the thirteenth-century economic boom, quoting a document of 1275 (Braudel, 317) The system
effectively by-passed the guilds' restrictions.
Before the flowering of the Renaissance, the Medici and other great banking houses of Florence
had built their wealth and banking system on their textile industry based on wool, overseen by the Arte della Lana, the wool guild: wool textile interests guided Florentine policies. Francesco Datini, the "merchant of Prato", established in 1383 an Arte della Lana for that small
Tuscan city. The sheepwalks of Castile
shaped the landscape and the fortunes of the meseta that lies in the heart of the Iberian
peninsula; in the sixteenth century, a unified Spain allowed export of Merino lambs only with
royal permission. The German wool market—based on sheep of Spanish origin—did not overtake British wool until comparatively late.
Australia's colonial economy was based on sheep raising and the Australian wool trade eventually overtook that of the Germans by
1845, furnishing wool for Bradford, which developed as the heart of industrialized woollens
production.
- Fernand Braudel, 1982. The Wheels of Commerce, vol 2 of Civilization and
Capitalism (New York:Harper & Row)
Due to decreasing demand with increased use of synthetic fibers, wool production is much less than what it was in the past.
The collapse in the price of wool began in late 1966 with a 40% drop; with occasional interruptions, the price has tended down.
The result has been sharply reduced production and movement of resources into production of other commodities, in the case of
sheep growers, to production of meat. [7] [8] [9]
Production
Global wool production is approximately 1.3 million tonnes per annum of which 60% goes into apparel. Australia, China and New Zealand are
leading commercial producers of wool. Most Australian wool comes from the merino breed. Breeds
such as Lincoln and Romney produce coarser
fibres and wool of these sheep is usually used for making carpets.
In the United States, Texas, New Mexico and
Colorado also have large commercial sheep flocks and their mainstay is the Rambouillet (or French Merino). There is also a thriving 'home flock' contingent of small scale
farmers who raise small hobby flocks of specialty sheep for the handspinning market. These small scale farmers may raise any type
of sheep they wish, so the selection of fleeces is quite wide.
Global wool clip 2004/2005[10]
- Australia: 25% of global wool clip (475 million kg greasy, 2004/2005)
- China: 18%
- New Zealand: 11%
- Argentina: 3%
- Turkey: 2%
- Iran: 2%
- United Kingdom: 2%
- India: 2%
- Sudan: 2%
- South Africa: 1%
- United States: 0.77%
Keeping with the times, organic wool is becoming more and more popular. This blend of wool is very limited in supply and much
of it comes from New Zealand and Australia[11].
Uses
In addition to clothing, wool has been used for carpeting,
felt, wool insulation (also see links) and upholstery.
Wool felt covers piano hammers and it is used to absorb odors and noise in heavy machinery and stereo speakers. Ancient Greeks
lined their helmets with felt and Roman legionnaires used breastplates made of wool felt.
Wool has also been traditionally used to cover cloth diapers. Wool fiber exteriors are
hydrophobic (repel water) and the interior of the wool fiber is hydroscopic (attracts water; this makes a wool garmet able to
cover a wet diaper while inhibiting 'wicking' so outer garments remain dry. Wool felted and treated with lanolin is water resistant, air permeable, and slightly antibacterial, so it resists the buildup of odor. Some
modern cloth diaperers use felted wool fabric for covers, and there are several modern commercial knitting patterns for wool diaper covers.
Yarns
Virgin wool is wool spun for the first time, as contrasted with shoddy.[12]
Shoddy or recycled wool is made by cutting or tearing
apart existing wool fabric and respinning the resulting fibers.[13] As this process makes the wool fibers shorter, the remanufactured fabric is inferior to the
original. The recycled wool may be mixed with raw wool, wool noil, or another fiber such as
cotton to increase the average fibre length. Such yarns are
typically used as weft yarns with a cotton warp. This
process was invented in the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire and created a micro-economy in this area for many years.
Ragg is a sturdy wool fiber made into yarn and used in many rugged applications like
gloves.
Worsted is a strong, long-staple, combed wool yarn
with a hard surface.[14]
Woolen is a soft, short-staple, carded wool yarn typically used for knitting.[15] In traditional weaving, woolen weft yarn (for softness and warmth) is frequently combined with a
worsted warp yarn for strength on the loom.[16]
Wool allergies
Many people consider themselves to be allergic to wool because they have an adverse reaction every time it touches their skin.
However, a true allergy to wool is actually rare. Most people who have a reaction to wool do so because they have sensitive skin,
and they would likely have a similar reaction to any coarse fiber. An allergy would require a person to have had a prior contact
with the wool that would cause a cell-mediated hypersensitivity against it. People with sensitive skin who would like to wear
wool can put a layer of softer fabric between the wool and their skin.
See also
Production
Processing
Refined products
|
Organizations
Other wool
In mythology
|
References
- ^ Technology in Australia 1788-1988. Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre (2001).
Retrieved on 2006-04-30.
- ^ Wool on The Web - Carbonising. Retrieved on 2006-04-30.
- ^ Kadolph, Sara J.; Anna L.
Langford. (2002). Textiles. Upper Saddle RIver, NJ: PEarson Education,
Inc..
- ^ a b Merino Sheep in Australia. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ Van Nostran, Don. Wool Management - Maximizing Wool
Returns. Mid-States Woolgrowers Cooperative Association. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ Wool and Fiber
Industry Profile. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ "The end of pastoral dominance"
- ^ 1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2000, Australian Bureau of Statistics
- ^ "SHEEP, LAMB, MUTTON AND GOAT MEAT
- ^ (September 2005). "WoolFacts" (PDF).
Australian Wool Innovation.
- ^ Speer, Jordan K. (2006-05-01). "Shearing the Edge of Innovation". Apparel Magazine.
- ^ Kadolph, Sara J., ed.: Textiles, 10th edition,
Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2007, ISBN 0-13-118769-4, p. 63
- ^ Kadolph, Textiles, p. 63
- ^ Kadolph, Textiles, p. 183
- ^ Kadolph, Textiles, p. 183
- ^ Østergård, Else: Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse
Greenland , Aarhus University Press, 2004, ISBN 8772889357, p. 50
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