Wool

CHARACTERISTICS OF

WOOL FIBRE

Sheep shearing is the process by which the woolen fleece of a sheep is cut off. After shearing, the wool is separated into four main categories: fleece (which makes up the vast bulk), broken, bellies, and locks. The quality of fleeces is determined by a technique known as wool classing, whereby a qualified person called a wool classer groups wools of similar grading together to maximize the return for the farmer or sheep owner.

Scouring

Wool straight off a sheep, known as "greasy wool" or "wool in

the grease", contains a high level of valuable lanolin, as well as

dirt, dead skin, sweat residue, pesticide, and vegetable matter.

Before the wool can be used for commercial purposes, it must

be scoured, a process of cleaning the greasy wool. Scouring may

be as simple as a bath in warm water, or as complicated as an

industrial process using detergent and alkali, and specialized

equipment. In commercial wool, vegetable matter is often

removed by chemical carbonization.

HISTORY

A man from Ramallah spinning wool. Hand tinted photograph from 1919, restored.

Wool skirting and rolling in Australia, circa 1900 As the raw material has been

readily available since the widespread domestication of sheep - and of goats,

another major provider of wool - the use of felted or woven wool for clothing and

other fabrics characterizes some of the earliest civilizations. Prior to invention of

shears - probably in the Iron Age - the wool was plucked out by hand or by bronze

combs. The oldest known European wool textile, ca. 1500 BCE, was preserved in a

Danish bog. Wool fibers from wild goats found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic

of Georgia as far back 34,000 BCE suggest that wool fabrics were made even

earlier than this

Made By :-

Aakash 1

Abhishek Pandey 2

Anshika Sharma 3

Brijesh Patel 4

Chelsi Patel 5

Saurav Tripathi 34