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Wool is the fibre derived from the Hair of animals of the Caprinae family, principally Sheep and goats, but the hair of other mammals such as alpacas may also be called wool. This article deals with the wool produced from Domestic sheep.
Wool is the fibre produced as the outer coat of sheep. Most of the fibre from domestic sheep 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.
Both the scaling and the crimp make it possible to spin and felt the fleece. They help the individual fibres 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 with the fineness of the wool fibres. A fine wool like Merino may have up to a hundred crimps per inch, where 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 colour, although some breeds of sheep produce natural colors such as black, brown (also called moorit) and grey.
Wool straight off a sheep contains a high level of grease (thus "greasy wool") which contains valuable Lanolin. In this state it can be worked into yarn or knitted into water-resistant mittens, as did the Aran Island fishermen. The grease is generally removed for processing by scouring with detergent and alkali.
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.
The fibre diameter of wool varies from 15 micrometres (superfine merino) to 30 or more micrometres for the coarser wools. The finer diameters are generally more valuable.
In medieval times, the wool trade was serious business. English wool exports - which bordered on European monopoly - were a significant source of income to the crown. Over the centuries, various British laws controlled the wool trade or required the use of wool even in burials. In 1699 English crown forbade its American colonies to trade wool with anyone else but England itself.
In the Renaissance, Medicis of Florence built their wealth and banking system on wool trade with the aid of the Arte della Lana, the wool guild. Spain allowed export of Merino lambs only with royal permission. German wool - based on sheep of Spanish origin - begun to overtake British one only at the end of 19th century. Australia's colonial economy was based on sheep raising and Australian wool trade overtook Germans by 1845.
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.
Shoddy is recycled or remanufactured wool. To make shoddy, existing wool fabric is cut or torn apart and respun. As this process makes the wool fibres shorter, the remanufactured fabric is inferior to the original. The recycled wool may be mixed with raw wool, wool Noil, or another fibre 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 fibre made into yarn and used in many rugged applications like gloves.
In mythology
Processing
Refined products
Wool organisations
Wools not produced from domestic sheep