From Sheep to Shop
From Farm to Yarn - Producing quality natural knitting yarn is our passion, we personally select only the highest quality fleece for our Cornish Wools own brand knitting yarn.
We oversee every stage of the process from selecting individual fleeces down on the farm, through the sorting of the fleece, packing and transportation to specially selected spinning mills, which we visit regularly during the process to ensure the highest possible production standards, to final quality control, because only the best will do.
The day has come when the shearer arrives down on the farm, the sheep are extremely pleased to be rid of the heavy thick wool coat before the warmer days of summer arrive, but then comes the dilemma for the farmer what to do with the fleece? The price paid for sheep fleece is generally very poor and more often than not does not cover the cost of shearing.
An essential part of maintaining the animal’s health and welfare, shearing takes place once a year in the warmer months of spring and early summer. It is a highly specialized trade sought after all over the world and is an elite, competitive skill. Professional shearers first remove any dirty wool which would contaminate the remaining fleece, usually from around the legs and tail end of the sheep. Next they remove the entire fleece in one piece in less than two minutes without harming the animal. At this pace, nearly 250 sheep are shorn in a day’s work, which is done with the greatest care for animal welfare. Each fleece can weigh between 1.5 and 7kg depending upon the breed of sheep.
Once at a processing facility, the raw wool is washed, or scoured, in a series of tubs using hot water and a detergent. Scouring removes the grease, unwanted vegetable matter, mud, thorns and anything else remaining from the fields. Once washed, the wool is thoroughly rinsed, wrung out through a series of rollers, and finally dried. Due to the removal of the grease and other undesirable elements, the scoured wool weighs nearly 30 percent less than it does in its raw form. The bi-products of washing are purified to yield lanolin which is used in a variety of products such as soap and body cream, ointments, cosmetics and other products. The yarn produced after scouring is usually made from a blend of fibres. In order to ensure their proper mixing, the fibres are often blended once before scouring and again afterwards in large, 15 ton bins.
This phase of processing straightens the fibres and removes some or all remaining unwanted material from the new scoured and dry wool. The wool is fed through a special machine, known as a card. Once on the card, the tangled tufts of wool pass through a series of rotating rollers of variying diameters and speeds. The rollers are covered in tiny fibres as well as removing any unwanted materials, such as straw. After carding, loose ribbons or webs of individual fibres are removed and taken for further processing into either worsted or woollen yarn.
In the woollen process, which is a shorter process, carding is critical and is the last phase of processing before the wool is spun it is also the last opportunity to blend shorter and longer fibres thoroughly before spinning. Yarn resulting from the woollen process contains minimally aligned fibres of differing lengths, so it appears ‘hairy’ and irregular.
The worsted process is more complex that the woollen process due to the added step of combing. Before the wool is combed, the carded ribbons of fibres, otherwise known as slivers, are passed through a gilling machine, which aligns the fibres in the same direction. Then the sliver is combed to remove any leftover vegetable matter, shorter fibres known as noils, and small bunches of fibre called nepps. Combing results in further refinement of the wool fibres before they are spun. The product of the combing process, a continuous rope of sliver, is referred to as a top. The top is gilled again and is then drafted, or drawn out, to yield roving which is now ready to be spun into yarn.
In the worsted and woollen processes, the amount of drafting directly affects the final thickness of the yarn produced. In the worsted process, roving is drafted prior to spinning in order to reduce its thickness. In the woollen process, the amount of carding, which yields slubbing, determines yarn thickness. By themselves, roving and slubbing have no real strength of their own until they are spun. Worsted yarns are given a higher degree of twist compared to woollen spun yarns. This results in greater strength and a smoother appearance. Both roving and slubbing are typically spun on a ring spinning frame, where twist and strength are introduced to the fibres. This machine consists of numerous spindles which rotate at high speeds . The spun wool is wound onto spindles, resulting in cones of yarn, which are later joined together to form even larger cones. Two or more yarns of the same or different colours are then spun together, or plied, which introduces further twist, and thereby added strength, to the yarn.
Text provided by the British Wool Marketing Board
