Neither. Technically, wool is only produced by domesticated sheep.
Qiviut is the undercoat of the Arctic muskox, a relative of sheep and goats (not cattle, despite being called an ‘ox’). It is shed naturally in spring. Only about half of the shed or less is suitable for spinning into yarn. The fibre itself is very fine (around 18 microns), warmer and stronger than wool, non-itchy, and – like hair – does not felt.
The vicuña is a wild South American camelid, related to the alpaca and llama. Vicuña do not do well in captivity, so they are rounded up and sheared every 2–3 years. The amount of fibre is tiny – only 500g or so. Unlike qiviut, vicuña doesn’t take dye well, so it’s only available in its natural golden-brown shade. Like alpaca, the fibre is hollow, and its fine scales allow it to interlock to retain warmth. Each fibre is 8–13 microns thick, making it one of the finest known – only angora hair, from angora rabbits, is of a similar fineness.
FLOOOOOFFFFFF.
The main difference is that muskoxen can be farmed, but vicuña can’t. As a result, qiviut is cheaper. Both, however, are high-end luxury fibres.
These are some hats that I’ve designed. All were knit from the bottom up and in the round, usually on double-pointed needles as that is my preference, but they could equally be knit on a circular needles.
The first row, and the last two on the right in the second row, involve reducing the number of stitches towards the end. The number of stitches at the end varies: Fluxions reduces to 6 stitches; Maquereau varies between 16 and 24 stitches according to head-size. For ‘reduction’ hats like these, the usual method* of finishing is to cut the yarn leaving a tail 6–10 cm long, thread the tail through the remaining stitches, cinch tight, and secure inside. The threading can be done with sewing (tapestry) needle, or you can use the knitting needles to ‘knit’ each of the stitches off, flicking the yarn tail through each.
Tiny Teddy and Shadow Pets have no reduction. The top of such hats could be sewn together using mattress stitch after binding off. However, the samples I worked for Tiny Teddy and Shadow Pets were closed using a 3-Needle Bind-Off** and an I-cord Bind-Off respectively. The instructions, iirc, were respectively Kitchener Stitch***, and mattress stitch with a separate i-cord sewn on afterwards.
These are two basic hat types. There are others – the ‘reducing’ hats can be worked top down, by increasing the number of stitches: this completely avoids having to sew/finish the hat. Some hat designers, like Woolly Wormhead, use very unusual construction methods which you just have to follow blindly, as it were: they WILL work, promise! Most patterns will give you reasonably detailed instructions for finishing, especially if it’s an unusual method.
If you’ve knitted a flat piece of knitting and want to turn it into a hat… the simplest way is to use mattress stitch. Sorry. You could crochet it together, too.
You’ll notice I give a lot of YouTube videos as examples. YouTube is a fantastic resource for knitters: you can generally find just about any knitting stitch, style, tip or technique there.
* – The pi hat (last on the right, bottom row) is completed by continuing the remaining stitches as an i-cord, to which the tassel is tied.
** – Ideal for ensuring your Pussy Hat’s ears stay perky.
*** – I personally recommend the knitted Kitchener stitch, as I only have Magic Disappearing tapestry needles. Also I hate sewing.
They shouldn’t be pets, and sheep in particular are better served in flocks. Goats too, but I’ve known some goats kept singly or in pairs that don’t suffer.
Personally, I prefer sheep, because, wool. Also, regularly handled, they’re tremendously affectionate, like dogs:
Goats eat and wreck everything and will knock you over as soon as look at you.
I suffer terribly with the cold. From September/October to May/June/July, I am bundled up in thick layers of thermal underwear, light under-layer, jumper and corduroy or tweed trousers, two pairs of socks, felted slippers/fur-lined boots, and often a hat, shawl/blanket and glove combo on top. That’s me sitting in front of the fire. There’s more insulation needed to get me out of the house.
However, for a few days between May/June/July and September/October, it is toasty and warm outside. On those days, I skip outside in a single layer of cotton or linen. Barefoot! Bare-headed! I feel so light that I might float away like a dandelion clock, young and giddy. I am occasionally tempted to dance, but I keep that to my back garden for fear of scaring the neighbours and livestock.
Thus it is with our woolly friends. They are denuded of their heavy, uncomfortable winter attire, and frolic sky-clad in the sun:
Shearing is usually conducted in spring. Sometimes, the weather is still a little chilly, so shepherds will house shorn sheep or give them little coats to wear while they adjust:
NB: in case you don’t get it, the lady speaking was being sarcastic about the cruelty of shearing.
Shearing is expensive. An experienced UK shearer can earn around £400 (€450/US$550/AU$730) a day: £50 per hour, shearing 25–30 sheep an hour. That’s a massive outlay for a farmer who may have had next to no regular income since the previous autumn. You don’t waste that money shearing an animal for slaughter. Far better to send the sheep unshorn for slaughter, and possibly have a sheepskin to sell to the tanning industry. I’m not well up on the prices realised by untanned sheepskin, but after processing a sheepskin can command upwards of £100 each.
In the UK, the Wool Marketing Board is the only buyer of fleeces from most herds*. They will pay as little as £0.50 per fleece – a fleece that cost around £2 to shear. There is no incentive to farm for fleece: some have been known to throw it away.
OTOH, there’s no incentive to mistreat animals if you do farm for fleece. An ill-treated animal will be skittish and unmanageable at the next shearing – and will probably recognise a bad shearer again, too.
* – Hobby farms with up to 4 sheep, and some rarebreed protection farms are exempt, as are Shetland farms. Some hobby farmers and rarebreed farmers sell their fleeces to handspinners. Depending on the breed, in the grease prices can be anywhere from £5 to £30 per fleece, while scoured fleece runs from about £10 upwards. Fully prepped tops, ready for spinning, can be anywhere from £4 per 100g to WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK!?!?!
(Actually, Hilltop Cloud isn’t that expensive – it’s just where I did my most recent fibre purchase. Try vicuna.)
Only some primitive breeds still retain natural wool* shedding.
Some, like the Wiltshire Horn, are primarily milk or meat animals. Their wool is short, kempy (full of hair) and usually of poor quality. The Wiltshire Horn has become more popular recently because their shedding saves farmers a lot of money on shearing and disposing of the wool – yes, it costs money to get rid of wool that’s not useful! Here are some WHs mid-shed:
The rams have glorious horns:
But otherwise I always feel they look like they have a skin disease…
Most of the rest are semi-feral Scottish breeds. There’s Soay, a rare-breed becoming popular as lawnmowers:
They’re tiny sheep, with decent enough fleece for spinning and knitting. Look at the weeness!
And the cootness!
They have mental horns too – any number, any shape.
Whoo thay fock are ye gleekin at, Jimmy?
Then there’s the Boreray:
Well, it’s either a Boreray ram, or the first sighting of a live haggis in the wild. Their wool has been described as a bit kempy, short and coarse, but handspinners I know who’ve worked with it RAVE about it. Some is next-to-the-skin soft, and it can have a pretty good staple of around 6″ or so – hardly short! The Boreray is critically endangered: there may be no more than 300 left in the world.
Some other Scottish breeds still have fleece-shedding genes that pop up in individual sheep, or in partial shedding. These include the rare-breed North Ronaldsay or Orkney (a seaweed forager):
The Shetland, which has probably best fleece for hand-knitting, in a wide range of natural colours:
Yarn spun from their fleece is widely used by Fair Isle knitters, and is one of my personal favourites. My birthday’s in September, gift vouchers are welcome.
Then there’s the Hebridean:
All hail our Dark Lord! These unfairly-disregarded lovelies have one of the densest natural black fleeces in the sheep world, their only competitor being first-shearing Zwartbles. This, of course, means the fleece is useless for dyeing – and many people don’t like to spin or knit with black yarn. I do, though, and it has a good sturdy hand.
Sometimes a shedding sheep will need some help to get rid of their fleece. It’s not necessary to call in a shearer, though: you can just tug the wool off, in a process called ‘rooing’:
* – I’m going to ignore hair-sheep, which shed naturally, because they don’t produce much wool.
In many countries, knitting is (or used to be) taught to all children; and historically, all children were involved in wool preparation, including carding and spinning.
Many men involved in fishing or sheep farming were knitters, as often, were soldiers.
My father (below) taught me to knit, and his lacework was something to behold.
thornmaiden.com 