Last year when I was at the state fair (see Sept. '06) I talked about different breeds of sheep as having stronger or finer wool. You want one kind of wool for rugs, and something entirely different for baby clothes.....
This is a corriedale fleece, which is toward the finer end of the continuum.
Most of the yellow color you see is lanolin and other "sheep grease." It will wash out (with very hot water and a lot of detergent and NO AGITATION!!!!!), leaving creamy white wool.
(Agitation is what causes felting. Not hot water, not soap, not shifting wool from hot to cold or vice versa. Agitation. If you don't want felt, don't agitate wool.)
Look how much more hair-like this one is. The curls are excellent, no?
Stronger fleeces are much less greasy than finer ones. The color here is the color of the critter's hair, with a bit of dirt in the mix, no doubt. I think the tag said this was a karakul fleece (that's a sheep breed).
Here is what I have the hardest time resisting. A nice gray fleece, with a lot of different colors, nice shine, nice crimp..... This Border Leicester fleece was Reserve Grand Champion fleece at the Michigan State Fair this year.
Thank goodness someone else bought it, or I might have ... just had to ... bring it home...........
3 comments:
I know absolutely nothing about wool and weaving but it sure was interesting to see the different qualities of sheep's wool in your photos. I saw so many sheep in England and they all looked like they had just been sheared, or is it shorned?
Thanks for popping over to our blog and sharing your lunch with us! :)
Thanks, Linda. The wool is SO different, from one end of the spectrum to the other.....
It's "sheared" or "shorn." :-) "Shorn" is past tense.
The sheep are shorn in the spring, so they are cooler over the summer, generally. So if you visited England in the spring, it would make sense that all the sheep were nekkid.
Some sheep actually grow so much fleece that they are shorn twice, which would usually be once in early spring, and once in early fall, I think.
You are most welcome, Linda Woods. :-)
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