Author: thornmaiden

Does all wool come from sheeps?

Sheep, not sheeps. It’s one of those weird English words that doesn’t take a ‘s’ when plural.

Technically, yes-ish. Wool is a winter undercoat which, in primitive sheep, is shed in spring. Most modern sheep have been bred to not shed their wool, although the genes do still exist in commercial breeds and one can often see sheep looking a bit ragged at this time of year, with clumps of wool coming away from their summer coat.

Not all sheep grow wool, and other members of the Caprinae family, such as Cashmere and Angora goats, do. Indeed, the undercoat of Angora goats, mohair, is so routinely sold as ‘wool’ – particularly in suits – that there’s no point in differentiating it now.

Confusingly, Angora rabbits, source of Angora fibre, not only have the name of the goat that does produce wool which is called mohair, but were originally known as wooled rabbits. (It’s also possible to spin Angora cat hair, but enough already).

So, there’s no reason why the undercoat of other animals cannot be called wool, too. However, in practice, these other fibres tend to take the name of the animal it comes from: alpaca, llama, guanaco, vicuna, camel, yak, bison, chinchilla, mink, possum. And finally, qivuit, from the musk-ox.

But if the fibre is from a plant, like cotton or linen, or is synthetic such as nylon or polyester, it is NOT wool, and I will get very sharp with you if you call it wool.

Quora linky.

What can you do with wool that varies in thickness without it looking messy?

These yarns are usually called thick-and-thin yarns, or occasionally slubby yarns, though the latter usually means the yarn is largely of one thickness with frequent, irregular ‘bobbly’ bits.

Thick-and-thin yarns come in various weights from thread to super-bulky. You can knit any pattern that uses the same weight and gauge as your thick-and-thin yarn. This is because you will be using the appropriate size of needle. The ‘thin’ bits might look a little lacey, or the ‘thick’ bits may look bunched up, but your fabric will even itself out over all.

Thick-and-thin yarns are particularly good at injecting life and movement into otherwise dull and plain knitting. They transform boring stretches of stockinette or garter stitch into an interesting-looking fabric. Some people love the rustic, homespun, home-made look they give to otherwise ordinary garments, and they certainly liven up a basic scarf or cowl. They’re also much loved by independent hand-dyers for their more exotic variegated dyes, so you may well have a virtually unique item at the end of your knitting.

How do you avoid your yarns getting tangled when working with more than one colour continuously?

Most of my tricks depend on one thing: taking the yarn from the centre of the ball, instead of the outside –

Admittedly, sometimes it takes a bit more fishing about than this video shows. However, using the yarn from the centre-out means the ball stays in one place and isn’t bouncing around the floor.

So, we have our wool sitting nicely, in one place, not gathering dirt and cat-hair.

Most of my colourwork is in the Fair Isle vein: 2 colours in each row/round. For this, I hold one yarn in my right hand, and the other yarn in my left hand – usually the dominant colour in my right hand as I am a British-style knitter:

This allows me to keep one ball on my left-hand side, and the other on my right-hand side – so they can’t get twisted up.

On the rare occasions where I use more than 2 colours per row/round, I have a few different techniques.

  • if the 3 (or more) colours are used in roughly equal amounts and/or regularly across the row/round, I usually just work across/around with 2, using the two-handed technique above, and slipping the stitches to be worked in the other colours; then, I work the other colour(s) across/around, slipping the stitches in the first two.
  • if the colours are not very equally or regularly used across/around, then I use a knitting thimble.
A Prym knitting thimble in ales packaging. This fits over the index finger, and has 5 plastic extrusions on one side, topped by a movable metal flange: this creates channels through which up to 4 yarns can be held and worked simultaneously.
Prym knitting thimble.
  • if I’m using a lot of colours in very irregular amounts, it’s usually intarsia or ‘picture’ knitting. Then, I wind a metre or so of each colour onto a yarn bobbin, which can hang at the back of the work wherever that colour is needed:

I do not like the knitting thimble as I’m a fairly tight knitter and find Continental knitting (yarn in the left hand) lends itself to lots of annoying dropped stitches, but needs must. I have been known to combine techniques, e.g., two-handed knitting with a thimble when working with one dominant colour (right hand) and 2 or more non-dominant colours (left hand).

Quora linky.

What is extreme knitting?

Extreme knitting is knitting on very large needles: both very thick:

A woman holds a pair of extreme circular needles of diameter 43mm (1 ¾"). Her hands cannot close around the needles.
43mm diameter circular needles

and very long:

A woman manipulates extreme knitting needles in a gymnasium. The needles are 5.86m (19'3") long, and 82.5mm (3¼") in diameter. The points of the needles are resting on a trestle.
Guinness world record needles, 5.86m (19′ 3″) long, 82.5mm (3¼”) diameter

One form of extreme knitting is giant knitting. This generally involves giant balls of giant wool:

A woman sits cross-legged with a 1kg ball of yarn on her lap. The ball is as tall as her torso, and individual strands of the wool are larger than her forearms.
1kg of Epic Extreme 100% Merino yarn (to scale).

This is used to make housewares, including mattresses and blankets:

A blue blanket in extreme bulkyweight yarn. The blanket is 20 stitches wide and 30 rows long.
20-stitch by 30-row blanket

rugs, futons, pouffes:

A child sits on a pink footstool crocheted in extreme bulkyweight yarn. The footstool is worked as a sphere, with approximately 8 rounds of (UK) double-crochet stitches.
Jupiter Footstool (crochet)

and, uh, clothing….

A woman wears a white bobble hat in extreme bulkyweight yarn. The pom-pom is almost as big as her head.
Yeah, I don’t know where they got the dpns either.

You can use these yarns for arm-knitting too, but that’s a different topic.

You can, of course, use these huge needles with finer yarns: it produces a lacier effect. Here’s a video showing how to knit your own hammock, suspended on giant needles:

The other main form of extreme knitting is multi-strand knitting. In this, multiple balls, skeins, hanks of yarn are worked together as one – again on the giant needles. Here’s Rachel John knitting a mattress with 1,000 yarns on a pair of sharpened trees:

A third form of extreme knitting gets very little press. Extreme miniature knitting:

A tiny Aran vest, resting in the centre of a woman's palm.

The image above is an Aran vest by Althea Crome, the designer for the movie Coraline. She produces 1:12 miniatures on 0.25mm diameter steel pins, using fine silk embroidery thread at around 3 stitches to the millimetre (80 sts/inch)!! OR LESS!!!

A woman's hand, with 5 perfectly formed colourwork sweaters laid side by ide along her index finger.
Just – just GO to her website. Be amazed.

And know there are people working at smaller scales…

Quora linky.

How did sheep shed their wool before the emergence of humans?

They did, literally, shed their wool.

It was their fluffy winter undercoat, and, come spring, it gradually fell out – if you have cats or dogs, you’ll see this exact process happening all over your sofa and best outfits.

There is evidence that sheep were domesticated 9-11,000 years ago, and that they were being bred specifically for their wool 6,000 years ago in Iran. NB: this is what we have evidence for – sheep may have been domesticated and bred for wool earlier, but we don’t have evidence for that.

Primitive sheep still retain their ability to cast their fleece:

Wild Soay sheep mid-shed on the Island of Hirta

Quora linky.

Is there a way to reverse shrinkage of a wool garment that has accidentally been in the drier?

Yes-ish.

It’s possible to reverse shrinking, to a certain extent. The type of garment shrunk matters, as does the degree of shrinkage. The garment is, however, unlikely to recover to its former glory. The simpler the garment, the better the outcome: for example, a scarf or shawl will stretch out better than a glove or jumper. In general, it’s not worth trying this on baby garments: put them on one of the baby’s dolls or teddies instead.

The technique involves wetting the garment thoroughly and stretching it. You’ll need a lot of muscle power to do the stretching – you are, after all, tearing the bonds between the fibres that have snagged together. The garment should be pinned out at its maximum dimensions and be allowed to dry naturally. It’s sometimes possible to repeat this procedure for improved results, but the downside is that the fibres will weaken, and you may tear holes in it.

If this fails, you could gift it to someone whom it will fit! Alternatively, it could be cut up for use as placemats, cushions, or even blankets.

Why is knitting and crocheting only associated with older women?

Because people nowadays are incapable of critical thinking.

Until about the 1980s, fibre crafts – knitting, crochet, weaving – were part of the curriculum in primary schools around the world. Boys learned, as well as girls. Many would have learned to card and spin fleece at home from an early age. Unfortunately, this practice disappeared in many countries. The last people to have gone through it are middle-aged, 40s+. Some are amongst the recent resurgence of interest in the fibre arts.

With the disappearance of fibre crafts from schools, so too did the simple knowledge that “older women” knit and crochet because they – and their brothers – learned to knit and crochet as very young children.

I am, I believe, not yet an “old” woman at 52, 53 later this year. I have been knitting for 48–49 years, and crocheting for 47–48 years.

The few remaining critical thinkers among you will have observed from the above that I have been knitting and crocheting since I was a very young child. Not an “older woman”.

Moreover, I was taught to knit by my 30-something FATHER. Not an “older woman”.

Look at the size of those hands. His wedding ring was the size of a toddler’s bracelet.

He taught me to knit AFTER teaching my younger brother, also not an “older woman”.

My uncle Victor, of whom I have written occasionally, was a mining engineer who began his career in the 1950s. At the time, there was a great push to explore uninhabited regions of the world for possibly useful minerals. Uncle Victor travelled to places that no human had ever set foot in, and certainly no Westerner. Having lived in some of the most inhospitable regions on the planet – places of extreme cold, heat, humidity, and low-oxygen environments – he was one of a number of people invited by NASA in the 1960s to consult on and provide physiologuical data for the Apollo program. He met Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong when they were mere hopefuls.

Why do I mention this? Well, Uncle Victor’s amazing career was made possible not by his academic knowledge of mining engineering and geology, or his experience. It was made possible because he knew how to knit, sew, and cook from childhood. He didn’t need to rely on a woman or an extensive support network to sew on his buttons, darn his socks, or make his dinner, so his employers could send him into regions where there were no women or support networks.

Quora linky.

Will cotton wool shrink up at all when I wash it?

Cotton yarn expands when washed. It lacks the little scales that wool has, which can interlock causing shrinkage. So that fitted cotton sweater you bought will most likely become a baggy sweater after the first wash.

A blend of cotton and wool will, on balance, retain its shape – the cotton expanding and the wool shrinking should cancel each other out, although a lot depends on the relative composition.

Cotton wool pads – the kind of thing you take your makeup off with – will appear to shrink, but that’s only because they’re floofed up with air in the package. As soon as they get damp – with water or makeup remover – the air gets removed, and you get a flat pad of cotton.

Quora linky.

If a sweater is 100% wool, how do you wash it?

Firstly, you need to know that wool garments do NOT need to be washed often. Hang them outside or beside an open window for a few hours after wearing – that’s all that’s needed mostly. Really: wool wicks off sweat and kills the BO bugs. Soiling can be scraped off carefully when dry, then shake out the garment and put it straight back on. For those particularly nasty stains, like red wine or tomato sauce, most can be soaked off on a very soapy solution followed if necessary with a rinse in a white vinegar solution. If any staining remains, you can reduce its visibility by gently plucking out some of the stained fibres. Never, ever use bleach on wool: it causes wool to melt and disappear.

So. Given that you only need to clean that pure wool suit or sweater every other month, you could consider getting it professionally cleaned. If, like me, even this small splurge sets your Scottish ancestors birling out of their graves to wail and groan at you of a night, you can hand-wash it on cool-ish water with a suitable wool washing agent (okay, okay Great-uncle Hamish, back in your box) or the cheapskate option, shampoo – for dry hair if possible. If your deceased Irish granny is giving you nocturnal earache about how she didn’t work three jobs to scrimp and save so that her grandchildren could wash their clothes by hand, you could use the wool programme on your washing machine. Again: really. Mine have survived front-loaders and top-loaders.

Then, the issue is the drying thereof. Unless the wool is “superwash” – it should say on the label – no tumble driers. Instead, roll the garment in a bath towel and squeeze, don’t wring the excess water out. Lay it out flat and pulled into shape and leave it somewhere airy and/or warm (but not in direct sunlight, or close to a heat source).

Quora linky.

Why do we use sheep wool?

Because painting ourselves blue turned out to be a tad redundant?

Because somewhere along the route out of Africa, we figured out that wearing skins meant a dead animal who couldn’t provide us with milk, whereas wearing fleece meant a living animal AND more baby animals who could provide fleece and milk?

Because it’s insulating, waterproof, fireproof, and easy to manipulate into textiles?

Because a renewable resource is better than polluting the planet with plastic fibres derived from non-renewable fossil fuels?

Quora linky.