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Wool Making
The processing of wool involves four major steps. First comes shearing, followed by sorting and grading, making yarn and lastly, making fabric. In most parts of the world, sheep are sheared once a year, in early spring or early summer. The best wool comes from the shoulders and sides of the sheep. This is followed by grading and sorting, where workers remove any stained, damaged or inferior wool from each fleece and sort the rest of the wool according to the quality of the fibres. Wool fibres are judged not only on the basis of their strength but also by their fineness (diameter), length, crimp (waviness) and colour. The wool is then scoured with detergents to remove the yolk and such impurities as sand and dust. After the wool dries, it is carded. The carding process involves passing the wool through rollers that have thin wire teeth. The teeth untangle the fibres and arrange them into a flat sheet called a web. The web is then formed into narrow ropes known as silvers.
After carding, the processes used in making yarn vary slightly, depending on the length of the fibres. Carding length fibres are used to make woollen yarn. Combing length fibres and French combing length fibres are made into worsted yarn.
Wool manufacturers knit or weave yarn into a variety of fabrics. Wool may also be dyed at various stages of the manufacturing process and undergo finishing processes to give them the desired look and feel.
The finishing of fabrics made of woollen yarn begins with fulling. This process involves wetting the fabric thoroughly with water and then passing it through the rollers. Fulling makes the fibres interlock and mat together. It shrinks the material and gives it additional strength and thickness. Worsteds go through a process called crabbing in which the fabric passes through boiling water and then cold water. This procedure strengthens the fabric
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