Hands On Machine On
Processing Wool into Yarn
1. Sheep Wool comes from sheep. They grow a wool coat and once a year this wool coat is sheared off the animal.
A shorn ewe will be more likely to stay out of the wind and bad weather and protect her new-born lamb if she does not have a wool coat on her.
2. Fleece The shorn wool coat is called a fleece. This fleece must be cleaned before it can be processed into wool yarn.
There is much vegetable matter and natural oil that must be removed. Sometimes as much as 50% of the weight of the fleece is not wool.
3. Skirting The wool from the back end of the sheep, their legs and sometimes their belly is too full of manure to use.
These are removed before washing the fleece; This process is called skirting. The fleeces are also sorted into the differenrt types.
4. Scouring The grease must then be removed from the wool. This can be done using soap and a lot of water.
It can also be done by submerging the wool in an acid bath which dissolves the vegetable matter as well as the grease, which process is called, �scouring.�
5. Picking The washed and dried wool is then "picked" which is the beginning of the process of opening up the locks of wool and turning it into a consistent web.
The wool is put through a picker which opens the locks and blows the fluffy wool into a room.
6.Carding After washing, carding can be done on a larger scale with machine driven drums covered with “card cloth” which combs the wool many times by transfering the wool back and forth.
There are “woolen” cards which produce a wool web with the fibers coming off in random alignment. This is in contrast to “worsted” combing that lines up all the fibers.
7. Spinning The final step in the carding process divides the web into small strips called pencil rovings.
These are collected on large spools on the end of the card. These spools of pencil roving will be placed on the spinning frame to make yarn.
8. Roving The roving as it comes off the card has no twist. It is held together by the oil and natural hooks that exist on the surface of the wool fibers.
9. Skeining When the wooden bobbins are full of yarn, they are placed on a cone winder and the yarn is transferred to paper cones for use in weaving machines and knitting machines.
It could also be put into skeins of yarn which are the form that knitters like to use. Sometimes the wool is woven or knitted directly from the cone.
10. Knitting There are two very basic stiches that people can follow: the knit stitch and the purl stitch. The Knit Stitch 1. Insert the right needle into the first stitch from left to right. Wrap your yarn around the needle clockwise. 2. Scoop your needle forwards. 3. Release the old stitch from the needle.
The Purl Stitch 1. Insert the right needle into the front of the stitch. 2. Wrap your yarn around the needle anti-clockwise. 3.Scoop your needle backwards. 4.Release the old stitch.
Hands On Machines On Eun Pyo Hong The School of Art Institute of Chicago Fall 2016 Barmeno & Didot “Steps in processing Wool into Yarn” Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill