Wool Cliffs Notes

I have to admit from the start that this post is basically a book report that was constructed using Cliffs Notes. I was doing some reading on Wikipedia tonight and I just wanted to gather the information into one spot here on my blog. So here are some passages taken from Wikipedia.

Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can be of any color, and made into any shape or size. Felt is the oldest form of fabric known to humankind. It predates weaving and knitting, although there is archaeological evidence from the British Museum that the first known thread was made by winding vegetable fibers on the thigh. In Turkey, the remains of felt have been found dating back at least to 6,500 BC. Highly sophisticated felted artifacts were found preserved in permafrost in a tomb in Siberia and dated to 600 AD. Many cultures have legends as to the origins of feltmaking. Sumerian legend claims that the secret of feltmaking was discovered by Urnamman of Lagash. The story of Saint Clement and Saint Christopher relates that while fleeing from persecution, the men packed their sandals with wool to prevent blisters. At the end of their journey, the movement and sweat had turned the wool into felt socks.

Felting differs from fulling in the sense that fulling is done to fabric whereas felting is done to fibers that are not in fabric form.

In needle-felting “the barbs [on the needle] catch the scales on the fiber and push them through the layers of wool tangling them and binding them together much like the wet felting process.”

Nuno felting is a Japanese fabric felting technique. It melds loose fibre, usually wool, into a sheer fabric such as silk gauze.

Wool is the fiber derived from the specialized skin cells, called follicles, of animals in the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain species of other mammals such as goats, llamas, and rabbits may also be called wool. Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it is crimped; it has a different texture or handle; it is elastic; and it grows in staples (clusters).

The Merino is the most economically influential breed of sheep in the world, prized for its wool. Super fine Merinos are regarded as having the finest and softest wool of any sheep. The term merino is widely used in the textile industries with very varied meanings. Originally it denoted the wool of Merino sheep reared in Spain, but due to the superiority of Australian and New Zealand wools the term now has broader use. In the dress-goods and knitting trades the term "Merino" still implies an article made from the very best soft wool.

Angora wool or Angora fiber refers to the downy coat produced by the Angora rabbit. While their names are similar, Angora fiber is distinct from mohair, which comes from the Angora goat. Angora is known for its softness, low micron count (i.e. thin fibers), and what knitters refer to as a halo (fluffiness). It is also known for its silky texture. Angora rabbits produce coats in a variety of colors, from white to black. Good quality angora fiber is around 12-16 microns in diameter, and can cost around 10 - 16 dollars per ounce. It felts very easily, even on the animal itself if the animal is not groomed frequently. The fiber is normally blended with wool to give the yarn elasticity, as angora fiber is not naturally elastic. The blend decreases the softness and halo as well as the price of the finished object.
The fibers are hollow which gives them their characteristic floating feel.

Mohair usually refers to a silk-like fabric or yarn made from the hair of the Angora goat. The word "mohair" was adopted into English before 1570 from the Arabic mukhayyar, a type of haircloth, literally 'choice', from khayyara, 'he chose'. Mohair fiber is approximately 25-45µ in diameter. It is one of the oldest textile fibers in use. It is both durable and resilient. It is notable for its high luster and sheen, and is often used in fiber blends to add these qualities to a textile. Mohair also takes dye exceptionally well. Mohair is also warm as it has great insulating properties. It is durable, moisture-wicking, stretch and flame resistant, and crease resistant. Mohair is composed mostly of keratin, a protein found in the hair, wool, horns and skin of all mammals. While it has scales like wool, the scales are not fully developed, merely indicated. Thus, mohair does not felt like wool does.

Recycled Wool Sweaters

OK, so here is my felting technique:

1. Purchase way too many sweaters while on business trips and pay too much for them at Oregon thrift stores - for whatever reason Oregonians get rid of the most beautiful sweaters and Goodwill knows it and takes advantage of it.

2. Bring purchases into the house under the cover of dark so husband does not have direct proof of my craziness - but who am I kidding? I know he knows I have no self-control when it comes to wool.

3. Cut all of the sweaters apart - if I can bear it, I also have a number of "felters" that became "keepers". I cut the arms from the body, open up the arm seams, then cut the back from the front of the sweater along the existing seams. Remove all buttons and zippers for later use. Cutting the sweaters into flat single-ply pieces probably helps the wool felt more uniformly.

4. Wash like-colored sweaters together. It would probably be a good idea to wash angora sweaters in a pillowcase as these sweaters tend to pick up the stray lint bits from other sweaters and the lint bits can become permanently felted to the angora sweater pieces. Generally though I just select a low water level so the sweaters don't float, throw in a tennis ball for added friction (though I have read about using a pair of jeans for friction) and drizzle some laundry detergent in there too. I wash the sweater pieces with hot water (cold rinse) on the 10 minute wash cycle. Some sweaters need an addition cycle to felt properly and some never felt which is really disappointing.

5. Dry the sweater pieces in the dryer for about 20 - 30 minutes and then I usually hang them on a drying rack if they are still a little damp.

6. Sort pieces by color or design and try to cram this felted bounty into my workspace in the corner of our bedroom.

SOME NOTES ABOUT WOOL SWEATERS:

• 100% wool sweaters are probably the best bets for felting. A man-made fiber content of up to 20% generally works though (spandex, acrylic, nylon, etc.) if the remaining 80% is made of up the natural fibers angora, or lambswool/wool. I seem to have really good luck with Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Eddie Bauer sweaters, but you pay more for the label.
• I haven't had much luck with merino wool. It just seems too thin and tightly knit and the fibers must not move against one another well enough during the felting process to make a nice felted end product. I have a few of these sweaters in my "to felt" pile so I'll report back on those in a later post.
• Striped or patterned sweaters that have too many different colors/yarn types can give uneven felting results. Some of the yarns may not be wool (check the label) or just felt at a different rate. So you can end up with a band of design that is highly felted or conversely, not felted at all, and the rest of the sweater just the opposite. The worst experience I had with this was a merino wool men's sweater from Scotland with a block pattern. Each differently colored block felted to a different degree and the result was a completely unusable sweater. Live and learn.
• Cable knit patterns don't seem to be good choices for felting. The loosely knit yarn must really have a lot of room for moving against each other and the result is a very densely felted product. Maybe a shorter wash cycle would work, I'll have to investigate that.
• Cashmere won't felt but it does get even softer in the wash and is a real treat to have for a project where the edges will be finished (like in a quilt or stuffed object) so you don't have to worry about it raveling or fraying. Look for cashmere sweaters in with the shirts at Goodwill, they end up there more often than with the sweaters.
• The men's section at thrift stores is another place to look for sweaters. I don't have the best luck with men's sweaters. The color selection usually isn't what I'm interested in but if you can find a good looking sweater it is usually a better deal than the women's sweaters. Men's sweaters tend to be both larger and less expensive.

That is about all I can think of at the moment. I'll post more information as I go though.

ham anyone?

Today I had a few minutes to kill before I picked the kid up from preschool so I stopped in at Goodwill. I hadn't been in quite a while and SweetB has been posting about her good luck thrifting for fabric so I had to take a look. When I first got the book Zakka Sewing the thought crossed my mind that the perfect thing to stumble on would be someone's 40-year-old fabric stash. Thrifting for fabric has its obvious drawbacks: you can't predict your results, the fabric quality may not be as high as today's fabrics, and sometimes the musty/thrift smell.

My biggest find today didn't turn out to be the two pieces of vintage fabric that I found (but they are nice, the fabric on the right has rooster and quail vignettes as well)

instead it was the pressing ham that I purchased for $1.99. Wow! It is an oldie but a goodie I think, made in the USA and it even has a nice plaid cover. The pressing ham is used in garment construction for pressing out seams and shaping items during sewing. I also found a really nice cream and sugar set that was made in Japan. So for 10 minutes of shopping I did pretty well.

Wooly Booly

I spent much of Saturday afternoon working on three-dimensional, needle-felted sheep. I have decided that getting these objects to look uniform and symmetrical is a bit like trying to pluck my own eyebrows. You know I start out with eyebrows that look like Bert's (you know, of Ernie and Bert) and somehow I manage to pluck 'em down to two acceptable arches. So, like with the eyebrows, I will forge ahead and hope for the best with this wool project.

It is funny though how even after the wool is cleaned and carded and packaged for sale it still has that lanolin smell.Working with the wool makes me think of my chore coat at home on the farm and it makes me a little homesick - though it wouldn't help much to go there, Mom and Dad have switched from sheep to goats.