The Production of Wool

Wool is a fiber resulting from the hair of some animals. While wool most properly comes from animals of the Caprinae family, predominately goats and sheep, you may also see fibers for the hair of other animals, such as alpacas, called wool. The wool produced from domestic sheep will be discussed on this page.

The outer coat of the sheep is what produces the fiber to create wool. The hair of domestic sheep is different from the hair or fur of other animals in a couple of very important ways. First it has overlapping scales, which can be compared to the shingles on a roof. Second, it is crimped; with some fleeces having has many as 20 bends per inch.

It is these two unique properties of wool, the scaling and crimping, make it possible to both spin and felt it. The individual fibers are able to fit together, and stay together. Wool has the great ability to retain heat because of the crimp in the fiber, which produces fabric with a greater bulk which retains air. This quality can also be used to keep heat out, for instance with bedouins and tuaregs.

The finer the wool fiber the more crimps it will have. Merino wool, which is very high quality wool, can have as many as one hundred crimps per inch. Karakul, which is much courser wool, can have as few as two crimps per inch.

Regular animal hair is much harder to bind into yarn because it has no crimp and barely any scale. Sheep do have hair as part of their fleece, which is called kemp. Some breeds of sheep have more kemp. Breeds that have a higher percentage of wool to sheep are more desired for felting, spinning, a creating batts fro quilting.

While the majority of sheep naturally produce white wool, there are some sheep that nautrally produce brown (moorit), black, and grey.

Wool contains a high level of lanolin, a natural grease, when it is first taken off the sheep. This greasing wool can be used to create water-resistant mittens, such as those of the Aran Island fishermen, or simply spun into yarn. The lanolin, however, is most often removed prior to processing the wool using detergent and alkali.

Wool will be separated into five separate categories just after it is sheared. These categories include fleece, bellies, pieces, locks, and crunchings. Everything but the fleece is packaged and then sold separately. It is then up to a master wool classer to determine the quality of the fleece. The wool classer does this by putting wool of similar grading together, a process which helps to maximize the profits for the farmer.

There is a great variety in the diameter of wool fibers. The finer fibers are usually more valuable. Some wool, such as superfine merino, has a diameter of 15 micrometers, while courser wools can be as large as 30 micrometers or more.

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