Wool is a protein fiber that comes from a variety of animals. Wool is a kind of fiber attained from the hairs of sheep, scapegoats, yak, and some other animals. Wool can be attained from numerous animals, not only from sheep. Woolen goods have been chief in homes and wardrobes for centuries because of the flexible, durable, and comfortable rates that this fabric has to offer.
Table of Contents
How is wool produced?
The process of making woolen fabric involves shearing, grading and sorting, digging and drawing, registering, spinning, weaving, and finishing.
Shearing
Wool is generally sheared from the coat of living beasties in the spring months when the animals don’t need their hair for warmth. The fur is sheared by a planter or angel- shearer and the coat is kept all in one piece as much as possible. An educated shearer can shear as numerous as 200 angels in one day.
Grading and sorting
After it has been sheared the coats are graded and sorted according to quality, with the different quality fibers being separated from each other. The quality doesn’t inescapably relate to continuity but feel and wimpiness and the swish fibers are generally taken from the shoulders and sides, while the smallest quality comes from the lower legs. Also Read: Types of Floral Prints and Fashion Trends
Scouring and cleaning
Wool that comes directly from the animals is known as ‘ raw hair ’ or ‘ grease hair ’ and it’s defiled with lots of dirt, sweat, beach, and grease. It has to be disgruntled in a bath of alkali rested products to remove the dirt and squeezed to remove spare water, although not completely dried. Once trolled, the hair will have lost up to 70 of its weight!
Carding
The woolen fibers are coming passed through a series of substance teeth in a registering machine. These teeth remove any residual dirt, unbend the fibers, and lie them alongside each other in thin splints, ready for spinning.
Spinning
The individual fibers are also twisted together to produce a single thread of yarn. A thread will contain 3 or 4 fibers and this process is carried out on a spinning machine. The signaled quality of the fibers means that they stick together truly fluently.
Weaving
Now the vestments of yarn can be interwoven to produce fabrics. Some are roughly woven to produce ‘woolens’ and others are tightly woven to produce ‘ worsted ’ fabric which is smoother and further fulgent than woolen fabric.
Finishing
The fabric also goes through a number of finishing processes including fulling, spoiling, and decating or shrink-proofing. It can also be painted at this final stage but dying can also do before registering. Also Read: Some of the best Tie and Dye Techniques in India 2022
Properties of woolen fabric
Woolen fabric is notorious for being warm and soft and cozy.
Durability
Wool is a hard fiber that remains that retains its nice appearance for a long time.
Breathability
Wool can actually keep you cool as well as make you lovely and lukewarm because the large air pockets created by its signaled weave allow heat and sweat to escape when they need to. However, the fibers shrink and let the heat out more fluently, therefore responding to the wear and tear and gash and incision conditions, If the atmosphere is thirsty and dry.
Immersion of humidity
As a fabric hair draws humidity from the body and absorbs it inside its fibers.
Resistance to dirt
Wool fibers have an external estate of scales that reduce the capability of dirt and dust to pierce the fiber.
Resistance to fire
One of the best properties of wool is that it doesn’t burn fluently. When subdued to squeezes it’ll smolder rather.
Repel nature
Indeed though wool absorbs humidity the scales on the external estate of each fiber repel liquids. Also Read: The Completed Guide to Knitted Wear
Different types of wool
There are numerous types of wool from different beasties, each with its own unique rates that affect its look and feel. still, there isn’t one singular type of angel’s wool, rather different types produce different types of fiber. Each type has its own unique benefits and characteristics.
1. Alpaca
A protein medium-weight wool fabric used for numerous purposes like high-end suiting, fleeces, robes, outerwear filling, and spreads, alpaca wool is a lustrous material that is soft, featherlight, warm, and durable. There are two types of alpaca — Huacaya and Suri — that produce different types of hair Huacaya coat is thicker and constantly used for knit particulars. At the same time, Suri is silkier and used more in woven vesture.
2. Angora
Taken from the Angora, Angora wool is a soft and ethereal fiber that retains the most heat and has the voguish humidity-wicking capability of any natural fiber. Since Angora filaments are fragile, Angora is constantly blended with other filaments to make them stronger. Due to a combination of its precious attributes and delicate civilization process, Angora wool products are generally truly precious.
3. Camel wool
A luxurious and warm fine fiber with a natural golden-brown color, camel wool is generally combined with other lower-precious types of wool to make it softer and further provident. Camel wool fleeces first came popular in the United States among polo players in the 1920s. moment, the softer wool of camels is still used for fleeces and other vesture, while its coarser external wool is used as backing for carpets and upholstery.
4. Cashmere
One of the most luxurious natural filaments, cashmere has a high natural crimp, which results in an incredibly soft and featherlight fabric. Cashmere is precious because it’s delicate to gain( filaments must be trolled from cashmere scapegoats rather than sheared), and the cashmere scapegoat produces a truly scarce quantum of cashmere hair per time. One other strike of cashmere is that it’s not as durable as angel’s hair.
5. Lambswool
Also known as” virgin hair” since it’s taken from a baby lamb’s first shearing when it’s only several months old, lambswool is extremely smooth, soft, hypoallergenic, and delicate to wrinkle. Since every lamb can only produce lambswool formerly, it’s a rarer and more precious hair to buy.
6. Melton
One of the toughest and warmest coats available, Melton contains thick hair filaments and is generally woven into a twill weave. Melton is fairly wind-resistant and good at water-wicking, making it one of the further waterproof coats and a high choice for woolen outerwear and heavy robes.
7. Merino
This superfine, candescent hair is one of the softest types of wool and is perfect for regulating body temperature in both cold and hot rainfall, making it a popular choice for athletic vesture. Merino ha wool comes from the Merino lamb, which is native to Spain but the moment has its largest population in Australia and New Zealand.
8. Mohair
Sheared from the angora scapegoat, mohair is lustrous but durable wool that drapes well and is frequently woven into a plain weave. Despite being fairly featherlight, it has good sequestration to keep you warm. Mohair is frequently used in dresses, suits, baby clothes, sweaters, and scarves.
9. Shetland
Cultivated from the hair of lamb native to Scotland’s Shetland islets, this wool is an ideal choice for knitting due to its durable but soft nature. It’s featherlight, warm, and available in one of the largest ranges of natural colors of any strain of lamb.
Easy way of explaining the type fabrics.
Lovely collections with superior quality with affordable cost.
Very well explained
It’s is amazing n in details described about the products n collection. Wishing u all the good luck let the brand recognised in pan India
Got detailed info abt the fabric 😊very useful
Very well presented and well versed Myra.. The material wool, sourced from animal is beautifully processed and stylized in today’s fashion.. As always, MYRA has enlightened it’s customer on the complete processes and procedures involved from creating a raw wool to processed well finished woollen fabric.. It’s different types like Alpaca, Angora, Cashmere, camelwool etc has shown versatility not only in pattern of dress designed and styled but also includes sense of warmth, softness, textured, coolness, fluffiness, grace and beauty for various attires .. It also gave a glimpse on how one can add these as their additional clothing and to accessorise their normal clothes and stylize them gracefully to carry on.Thank you Myra .
Myths of wool cleared with complete and proper information, most of the people had incomplete knowledge on wool but this information has cleared a lot of myths of wool that it only keeps warm.
Very Nice & Useful Article
Bahut sundar shabdo me fabrics ka parichay
Shandar jandar dumdar
All the best
From Inception to finish,every minute detail about Wool.Very well researched and explained.Congratulations.
Clothes mixed with 40% wool+20%Cotton+20%viscose+20%linen will give good effect you will enjoy wearing the fabrics
Good article. But here i would like to mention that we should avoid using Merino wool in particular or any kind of wool whatsoever. This is because the wool is obtained from sheep in a very cruel fashion.
There are many synthetic substitutes for this items …
please think of all the poor suffering animals and the torture they go through so you can have something soft to wear. This is indefensible!!!!
You have explained about wool from shearing to wool final product covering all aspects about various varieties it’s qualities with their properties and benefits.
Excellent
Very well explained
Very well explained about fabrics. Superb
Wool a much needed fabric for mankind in times of cold. Perfect design can make u look chic n classy. Also it’s no more a requirement but also fashion statement