Mohair is not wool, as such. Wool, strictly speaking, is a seasonally-growing undercoat from sheep, although the term is often used more widely to include fluffy undercoats from many other animals, including yak and buffalo.
Mohair is a hair fibre from the Angora goat. It has a silk-like sheen, dyes well, and does not felt. It is also very sturdy compared to similar-quality sheep’s wool, and for that reason is often used to make outerwear, and, historically, soldiers’ uniforms.
You start
You may also knit the hat as a flat rectangle, sewing the sides together and sewing across the top edge. This produces a square-edged hat, which may be worn in either orientation:
It is also possible to work a hat from one side, using short-rows with increases and decreases to the other side: designer Woolly Wormhead has explored this construction, and almost every other possible construction too.
Another possibility is to knit a hat in segments. The best example of this is the Fool’s Gold jester cap, which is the basis for my Borg Queen, or I Are A Pwincess Now:
There are other, more complex constructions (grins evilly) too.
BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE CAN BE KNIT ON CIRCULAR NEEDLES.
I use circs almost exclusively in preference to straights (‘normal’ single-pointed needles). This is because I have relatively short forearms and large biceps, and most straights are too long and either get stuck against my upper arms or whack them with every stitch. I’m in knitting for the pleasure, not the pain.
Circs can be used for small tubular projects like hats or socks by
The latter two techniques can be used to work a hat from the crown down, starting with a few stitches, or when reducing the number of stitches for a brim-up hat.
For other constructions, a circ can be used just the same way that a pair of straights are used. Just knit a row, then swap the left and right needle-tips to the right and left hand respectively, and repeat.
PS: the foregoing works for socks, gloves, mitts, mittens, sweaters, scarves, trousers, toys, cushions, blankets, and everything that you can possibly imagine knitting.
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Any animal with hair, fur, wool, etc., benefits from grooming – including humans1.
There are primarily two kinds of sheep, one hair (kemp) and one which produces a woolly undercoat in winter. Hair sheep have been domesticated primarily for milk and secondarily for meat. Wool sheep were domesticated for primarily for wool production, and secondarily milk and meat. There are still wild sheep of both hair and wool varieties. The wild wool sheep and some domesticated primitive wool sheep still shed their woolly undercoat in spring2,3, but the majority of domesticated wool sheep need to be sheared annually as the shedding genes have been bred out.
The majority of domesticated sheep are now kept for meat and milk, and have poor quality fleeces which are often unfit for any use – though some can be used as a natural home insulation. It costs the farmer to have such sheep sheared, and the farmer then has disposal costs. As a result there’s a trend towards breeding natural shedding back into some breeds, such as the Wiltshire Horn:
So yes, whether natural shedders like the Soay, or shearing sheep like Merino, sheep need to get rid of their winter undercoat, and we would use the cast-off or sheared fleece either way. Wool is strong, insulating, water-repellent, breathable, anti-microbial, hypoallergenic, non-flammable, renewable, and (if you buy locally) low carbon-footprint4,5, unlike synthetic substitutes. Its processing is non-polluting and very easy on the environment (sheep graze otherwise unusable land, and improve it), compared with many plant-based substitutes[6]. Accept no substitutes!
Footnotes
[1] What does it feel like for a sheep after it gets sheared?
[2] How do sheep get rid of their wool naturally?
[3] Do wild sheep exist anymore?
[4] Characteristics of Wool Fabrics | Properties of Wool Fabrics
[5] 7 Properties of Wool That Might Surprise You
Some, not all, animals (including some birds) in cooler regions have a seasonal requirement for a warm undercoat. In warmer weather, that undercoat is usually shed or moulted: you will notice your pet cat or dog doing so in spring.
In domesticated (but not wild) sheep, the shedding function has been eliminated wholly or partially by selective breeding.
It varies:
The above are popular yarns – other yarns may well produce different values, especially if they aren’t 100% wool: for example, 900yds of Malabrigo Chunky (bulky weight, 100% wool) is 900g, and 900yds of Knit Picks Billow (bulky weight, 100% cotton) weighs 750g.
If you have a ballband for this yarn, you can calculate the weight of 900yds by:
Another upvote for Ravelry as a resource, and adding Yarn Substitution.
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Unlikely.
They’d have gone through the stomach first, which is basically an acid bath with added protein-digesting enzymes. Acid denatures proteins, destroying their bonds and structure – effectively causing them to ‘crumble’ apart. Wool, a protein, wouldn’t survive that in its thread-like form.
However, there is a condition in which people swallow large amounts of (usually) their own hair: trichophagia, sometimes called Rapunzel Syndrome. This can cause a large hairball to form, which can harden into a stone-like substance called a trichobezoar. Simply put, the quantity ingested has overwhelmed the stomach’s ability to digest the protein. Some people have become seriously ill as a result, and at least one is known to have died.
In short, a few strands of wool should not cause difficulties – just don’t eat anything bigger than an egg-cozy.
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If you want to use cotton, you should look for mercerised cotton. This has been treated to produce a non-fuzzing, slightly shiny appearance which is perfect for lace.
You might also look at blends with linen, hemp, nettle, or silk. There are also some remarkable yarns around which are cotton-like, but are made from bamboo, milk protein, crab shells … the world’s your oyster (and there’s also pearl yarn!).
Do not disdain wool: there are many wools around that are soft to the skin, and have wonderful stitch definition which is perfect for crochet. Specific breeds that are good are Blue-Faced Leicester and Falkland – I can particularly recommend Eden Cottage’s BFL Bowland and Debbie Bliss Falkland Aran – I designed this in Falkland Aran:
Incidentally, Ravelry is a great resource for learning about yarns. You can select to look at different weights, fibres, blends, sources, etc., and even look at projects worked in any yarn that interests you. Another great website is Yarnsub – especially if the price-tags on some yarns scare you! It’s still in its early stages, but still good. It was designed to help substitute yarns recommended in patterns if they were discontinued, hard to find, allergenic, or just to darn expensive!
Quora linky.
Others have mentioned the difficulties of catching and domesticating mountain goats and Bighorns.
I’m going to look at what the benefits of Bighorn sheep might have been to the Native Americans. Sorry, I don’t know much about goats.
Factors in sheep domestication:
(1) I don’t know if Bighorns are particularly good milkers, but, if domesticated, the better milkers could be selected for. However, at least 74% of Native Americans lack the gene mutation for adult lactose tolerance. That figure could well have been higher in the past, so they would not necessarily have wanted to domesticate Bighorns for milk.
(2) Bighorns are big buggers, and can weigh up to 300 pounds. This would be a good reason for their domestication, but absent other reasons, why not simply hunt wild Bighorns?
(3) Bighorns are hair sheep. They have minimal undercoat (fleece).
(4) Another good reason for domestication, but insufficient on its own: hides would be a byproduct of hunting for meat.
(5) Bighorns are BIG. 2–300 pounds, around 1 metre (40 ins) tall at the shoulder, 1.6 – 1.85 m (5–6ft) long nose to tail. Those horns alone can weigh 14kg (30 pounds). This alone wouldn’t render them undomesticable – cattle are much larger. However, combined with their social structure, their size alone is risky. Unlike domesticated sheep, they live communally – males and females together, rather than many females and one ram. The latter social structure works for domesticability: if you can control the ram, you can control the flock – or simply eliminate the ram, and the ewes will follow you as the new leader. With Bighorns, you’d need to eliminate all the rams – even keeping one for breeding doesn’t keep control of the flock – and gain control of the oldest ewe (female Bighorns have an age-related hierarchy). If you did somehow manage to keep a Bighorn flock whole, you would have to deal with big, dangerous rams attacking each other (and, presumably, you) in rut to establish a pecking order for access to fertile ewes.
Herding Bighorns is far too much effort for access to their meat and skins – which can be obtained much more economically through hunting.
If you’re doing this at home, you can distinguish fibres using the burn and bleach tests. Note that it can still be quite difficult to identify the fibres in a blend.
Burn test:
How to tell what the fiber is advises using a 1/2″ square of fabric held in tweezers,and a bunsen burner. I’ve used 6″ lengths of yarn and a Zippo lighter, over a damp cloth.
Bleach test:
Use neat bleach in a non-reactive vessel (e.g., glass), and submerge the sample for 24hrs.
Quora linky.
I don’t know. Why don’t sheep shrink in the rain?
Oh, this wasn’t the lead-in to a hilarious joke. I’m sad now. 😥
Mainly because shrinkage, felting or more correctly fulling occurs through agitation of wool and related animal fibres in heated water. So your sheep will shrink, but only if you put it in the washing machine on the Boil setting. Though frankly, shrinkage is the least of your sheep’s worries in that circumstance.
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