wool information 1 page
Answers
Explanation:
Wool is the hair of certain mammals. Most wool comes from sheep and goats, but wool is also taken from camels, llamas, and special rabbits. Wool is a natural material. People use wool fiber to make clothing, blankets, and other things to keep warm. It is usually used to make outer clothing but is also used to make blankets, socks, sweaters and fine clothing. Rabbit wool is called angora wool. Cashmere and mohair come from goats, qiviut from musk oxen, and other types of wool from camelids.
Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it is crimped and elastic. Wool fabrics clean easily. Wool also absorbs moisture and insulates against heat and cold.
Wool can be spun or made into yarn. The yarn is used to weave fabric or material. The yarn of wool can also be knitted into fabric or clothing like jumpers.Alpaca, mohair, angora, camel, cashmere and vicuna are all separate types of wool.
Wool can also be made into felt after it is boiled in hot water and rubbed together. Felt is a kind of fabric that is not woven. Felt can be used to make clothes to keep warm in cold weather.
Australia is the world's largest producer of raw wool, growing about 30 percent of the total world supply. Less wool is produced than in the middle 20th century, because people use more synthetic fibers.
Sheep were domesticated (tamed) in southwestern Asia about 11,000 years ago and now about 1 billion are now widely bred around the world.
Explanation:
Wool is produced by follicles which are small cells located in the skin. These follicles are located in the upper layer of the skin called the epidermis and push down into the second skin layer called the dermis as the wool fibers grow. Follicles can be classed as either primary or secondary follicles. Primary follicles produce three types of fiber: kemp, medullated fibers, and true wool fibers. Secondary follicles only produce true wool fibers. Medullated fibers share nearly identical characteristics to hair and are long but lack crimp and elasticity. Kemp fibers are very coarse and shed out.[2]
Fleece of fine New Zealand Merino wool and combed wool top on a wool table
Wool's scaling and crimp make it easier to spin the fleece by helping the individual fibers attach to each other, so they stay together. Because of the crimp, wool fabrics have greater bulk than other textiles, and they hold air, which causes the fabric to retain heat. Wool has a high specific thermal resistance, so it impedes heat transfer in general. This effect has benefited desert peoples, as Bedouins and Tuaregs use wool clothes for insulation.
Felting of wool occurs upon hammering or other mechanical agitation as the microscopic barbs on the surface of wool fibers hook together. Felting generally comes under two main areas, dry felting or wet felting. Wet felting occurs when water and a lubricant (soap) are applied to the wool which is then agitated until the fibers mix and bond together. Some natural felting can occur on the animals back.
Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair/fur: it is crimped and elastic.[3]
The amount of crimp corresponds to the fineness of the wool fibers. A fine wool like Merino may have up to 40 crimps per centimetre (100 crimps per inch), while coarser wool like karakul may have less than one (one or two crimps per inch). In contrast, hair has little if any scale and no crimp, and little ability to bind into yarn. On sheep, the hair part of the fleece is called kemp. The relative amounts of kemp to wool vary from breed to breed and make some fleeces more desirable for spinning, felting, or carding into batts for quilts or other insulating products, including the famous tweed cloth of Scotland.
Wool fibers readily absorb moisture, but are not hollow. Wool can absorb almost one-third of its own weight in water.[4] Wool absorbs sound like many other fabrics. It is generally a creamy white color, although some breeds of sheep produce natural colors, such as black, brown, silver, and random mixes.