Shear Waste?

Adding value to organic

Welsh Wool

01/11/2013 1

01/11/2013 2

Our mill: woollen

spinning

This - not this!

01/11/2013 3

When we moved in

01/11/2013 4

Our mill today

Wool: the ORIGINAL BEST

fibre! • 100% natural, 100% sustainable, 100% bio-

degradeable, 100% renewable, 100% versatile

• Warmer: highly insulating and lightweight

• Safer: fire retardant, absorbs water

• Breathable: healthier, more comfortable

• Hypoallergenic: is anti-bacterial

• Memory: springs back into shape

Organic Wool Questions

• Is it better than non organic?

• How do we know?

• How can we prove it?

• How differentiated are the processes?

• Does this justify a premium price?

• How would a price premium affect

market opportunities?

01/11/2013 6

Determinants of fibre quality: – genetics

– age and gender

– health status

– colour

– climate and location

01/11/2013 8

Adding value

Raw Fleece

Add to blends

£10-20 per Kg.

Buy in at

50p-£10 per Kg.

Age and Gender: • Lambs: have the softest, finest

wool • Younger ewes, wethers: may

be softer and finer than older ewes

• Rams: tend to have coarser fleeces

Health status: • Healthier sheep: have thicker,

longer fleeces, up to 25% more wool

• Summer shorn ewes: have been working hard looking after their lambs: it shows in the fleece!

• Shearlings, wethers: tend to have thicker, longer fleeces

Colour: • White sheep: tend to have finer

fleeces • Black and coloured sheep: tend to

have coarser fleeces • Jacob: the white and black can be

very different on the same animal • Icelandic, Boreray, etc.: have

double coats, with both coarse and fine hairs

Climate and location: • Mountain sheep: thick, long coarse

wavy fleeces, sometimes with fine undercoat

• Hill sheep: usually strong, coarse, dense, longer, wavy

• Downland sheep: shorter, more dense, tight crimp

• Cross-bred sheep: very varied, some fine and some coarse, medium length

• Moving down the hill: grow more, longer and finer fleeces, for a while …

Breeds for climate and location: • Mountain sheep: Blackface, Rough

Fell, Swaledale, Welsh Mountain • Hill sheep: Cheviot, Exmoor Horn,

Shetland, White-faced Woodland • Downland sheep: Suffolk, Southdown,

Dorset, Portland, Oxford • Lustre sheep: Wensleydale, Blue-faced

Leicester, Devon and Cornwall Longwool, Cotswold

• Rare/minority: Jacob, Herdwick, Black Welsh Mountain, Hebridean, Soay

How to get the best results, whatever your fibre quality: – skirting

– sorting

– grading

– storage

– the right product for the right fibre

Good Preparation = Good Results!

Raw/greasy fleece

As shorn from the sheep (Gotland in

this case). The fleeces should be

shaken to remove second cuts, loose

vegetation, etc., and then skirted to

remove short, very dirty bits. Dags,

cotted/matted areas or those

contaminated with vegetation should

be pulled off. Also, while raddle will

wash out, most market sprays will

not, so please either avoid them or

removed areas of fleece covered in

dye. The remaining fleece should be

open, like a veil, or in locks, clean-

looking and should only contain dirt,

sweat and lanolin, with the minimum

of vegetation and no pesticide.

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Fleece sorting and grading

We do this by hand on a high table

with a netting top, which helps our

backs and also allows dirt, short fibre

and dust to fall through. We remove

the bits listed above, and can sort by

colour, grade and/or remove coarse

fleece if required. Sorting and

grading is included in our set-up

charge, except for colour sorting. At

this stage, we may contact you: this

might be to recommend adding fleece

to make up the quantity or soften the

results, or to de-hair alpaca. We

charge for disposal if rejected fibre is

more than 15% of the incoming

amount.

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Sorted fleeces waiting for scouring

Each batch from each customer is

sorted separately, stored separately

and processed separately. All sacks

are labeled and each batch is

accompanied by its own production

sheet and dockets and labels. We

can split batches to make different

things, but charge per split if there are

multiple splits as this requires quite a

lot of extra work. We normally scour

paler and finer fleeces first, following

them with darker and coarser ones.

Scouring removes dirt, sweat, grease,

some short fibre and vegetation, also

sometimes sand and salt from North

Ronaldsay fleeces!

01/11/2013 17

Scoured, dried fleece

After scouring, we spin and then

tumble dry the fleeces. This leaves

them slightly clotted together but not

felted. Some fleece will felt if very

fine and we can air dry small batches

if necessary. Dried fleece can be

stored indefinitely and we always

have a store of suitable breeds and

colours, along with silk, nylon, flax,

etc., for blending or adding to batches

if required. Due to space constraints

we are not able to store scoured

fleece for customers.

01/11/2013 18

Blended fleece

Once it is dry, we can tease apart and

blend the fleece. This is the

opportunity to add other colours or

fibres to a basic batch. We also add

10% by weight of a blend of around

two-thirds water and one-third

spinning oil (except when producing

carded fleece) to enable us to control

the fleece through the processing.

We use a GOTS organically

accredited oil for organic processing.

The fleece is now basically a big pile

of slightly damp, very slightly oiled

fluff.

01/11/2013 19

Carded fibre

The next stage is carding, or, to be

precise, scribbling (i.e. putting the

fleece through the first part of the

carding machine). This makes the

scoured and carded fleece ready for

felting or hand spinning. We can

either lap it into a box or coil it into a

bag in a tub or “can”. The flat version

is illustrated opposite and the coiled

version is shown below. The former

is better for felting and the latter

probably better for spinning. The

fibres are smoothed out but are not

aligned, so this will make a woollen

spun yarn.

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Can-coiled carded fibre

Carded fibre can be lapped or can-coiled.

If we are making worsted spun yarn, the

fibre is removed after scribbling in the

cans and taken for gilling (sometimes

called pin drafting) and combing in

preparation for worsted spinning. If we are

doing woollen spinning the fibre carries on

into the second half of the carding

machine and emerges as fine slubbings

(finer and much weaker than pencil

rovings) ready to go to the woollen

spinning machine. Carding can permit

adding neps (small knots of fibre) for

feature yarn and gilling can permit adding

fibre such as nylon. Both carding and

worsted preparation also work on precise

settings to define the final thickness of the

yarn to be made.

01/11/2013 21

Sorting

fibre

Blending

scoured

fibre

Carding

blended

fibre

Worsted

Spinning

tops

Scouring

fibre

Finishing

yarns

De-hairing

cashmere,

alpaca

Felting,

hand-

weaving

Batts,

Rovings

Plying

Washing

Hanks,

Cones,

Balls

Gilling,

Combing

sliver

Woollen

spinning

slubbing

Optional

process

Final

product

Main

Process

and on what

Main stages

in processing

fibres into yarns

End use Knitting,

weaving

Felting,

hand-

weaving

01/11/2013 23

Adding value

Raw Fleece

Scour and

Card

Add to blends

£10-20 per Kg.

£15 trade

£40 retail per Kg.

Buy in at

50p-£10 per Kg.

Cost £10

per Kg.

Batt preparation

The third option from the scribbler

part of the card is to take the fibre off

by letting it wind around a large roller

to build up a thick mat, called a batt.

The batt will be around 60” (1.53m)

wide and can be made in varying

thicknesses using from 1kg to 5kg of

fleece. To remove the batt from the

batt roller we simply cut along from

end to end and it comes of as a fat

mat of fleece. This will pull apart

relatively easily, so could be used for

hand spinning but the main use is for

wet felting or needle felting.

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A batt ready for felting

Here is a batt, showing the cut end.

We can make these by weight from

1kg to around 5kg and then needle

felt them so that the resulting felt will

be approximately 60” (1.53m) wide

but much thinner and probably about

50% longer. Depending on the

weight of the batt, the needle-felt will

be between 0.25” (0.5cm) and 0.75”

(2cm) thick. The more passes

through the needle felting machine,

the thicker and denser the needle-

felted fabric becomes, until it can be

quite firm enough to sew or wet felt

additional fibre on top.

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Needle-felt

We feed the batts into our needle

felting machine, which contains a

bank of barbed needles which stab

through the batt linking all the fibres

together to create a felted fabric. We

do not do wet felting but lightly

needle-felted batts of wool and alpaca

can then be further embellished by

wet felting and it is helpful to needle-

felt alpaca to make it hold together

before wet felting. It is possible to

dye needle-felt, cut it and also to

make it in layers to have different

colours (e.g. dark and light) each

side.

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Tops

After can-coiling part carded fibre, it is

made into tops, by gilling (pin-

drafting) and coming. Tops are ready

for hand-spinning into worsted spun

yarn and are also sometimes used for

felting. To make our worsted yarns

from tops, after re-gilling, we auto

level and bi-coil to make the thinner

bands of fleece ready to go into the

worsted spinning frame. We can also

de-hair alpaca by combing it and

have found this to be most effective

method. It also removes remaining

hay seeds and all short fibre, so the

yield is lower from the original fibre as

well as being more costly.

01/11/2013 27

01/11/2013 28

Adding value

Raw Fleece

Scour and

Card

Knitting and

weaving yarns

Add to blends

£10-20 per Kg.

£15 trade

£40 retail per Kg.

£30-50 trade

£70-180 retail per Kg.

Buy in at

50p-£10 per Kg.

Cost £10

per Kg.

Cost £20-40

per Kg.

Single yarn

The spinning machines, whether

woollen or worsted, make a single

yarn on a tube which is slid over the

spindle. Single yarns tend to kink but

this can be removed by steaming or

by plying into doubled or plied yarns.

Single yarns are often used for

weaving, particularly woollen spun

yarns for blankets, throws, scarves,

and tweeds, as they will brush up

after weaving to make a soft, fluffy

surface. Worsted spun yarns may be

single or 2-ply for weaving and will

make smoother, stronger and finer

fabric.

01/11/2013 29

Plied yarn

Knitting yarns, apart from single lace-

weight yarns, are usually plied to

make from two- to five or more plies

and the plies may be combinations of

plies to make thicker yarns or to

achieve greater stretch or

smoothness. Generally more plies

tend to make for smoother yarns as

they usually start with finer single

yarns. Woollen spun yarns are both

spun in the singles and then plied to

make as low a twist as possible to

retain the softness while holding the

yarn together. Worsted is more

tightly spun and plied but may feel

softer as the surface fibres are all

aligned.

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Oiled yarn

Newly spun yarn after plying, whether

then finished in skeins/hanks or on

cones, will still have the spinning oil

on it so will be flat and dull-looking

and may feel quite hard. In this state

it is useful for machine knitting or

weaving as there is a minimum of

fluffiness from fibres sticking out. The

yarn may be steamed to reduce the

propensity to kink, and this will also

remove most of the spinning oil. To

prepare for machine knitting the yarn

can also be waxed as it is wound onto

cones.

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Washed yarn

This is exactly the same yarn as in

the previous slide, but after washing

out the spinning oil, which makes it

paler, softer and also “bursts” it,

enabling the individual fibres to

remember their form and become

fluffy, elastic and resilient. The yarn

is now ready to be packaged in its

final format or dyed. Woollen spun

yarns will continue to soften and felt

slightly over time whereas worsted

spun yarn is remains closer to the

state when it was first made,

gradually wearing thinner and

sometimes harder. Hand knitting or

crochet will also soften all yarns.

01/11/2013 32

100g skeins/hanks of washed yarn

If the yarn is to be dyed it is left in

large un-weighed skeins, but we can

also make weighed skeins at 50g,

100g, 200g or for a set length or

weight as required by the customer.

Each hank is tied in 4 places, once to

tie off the two ends and three more

times to hold the threads in place.

Skeins are relatively easy to knit from

if you can keep them around a chair-

back or your neck but most people

find that hand-winding into balls

makes life easier. Twisted skeins

take as much work to make as balls

as we twist them all by hand.

01/11/2013 33

Cones of dyed yarn

A cone is the most dense package for

finished yarn, so makes the least bulk

for storage or transport. You can also

knit or crochet direct from a cone,

which avoids making joins in the yarn,

but at 300g to 1kg in weight they are

less transportable than balls. We dye

our yarns in hanks/skeins but wind

them back onto cone for storage or

before winding into balls. Cones

generally weigh about 25-30g and we

include the weight of the cone in the

total package as no-one ever sends

them back, unless specifically

requested for Weights and Measures

purposes to weigh just the yarn.

01/11/2013 34

Balls of yarn without ball-bands

Our ball winder will make 25g, 50g,

100g or larger balls and can also

customize the winding design! The

balls may be left long or flattened into

dough-nut shapes. They are then

packaged into grip-seal polythene

bags, normally 10 or 12 to a bag.

Some customers will have a mix of

hanks, cones and balls as their

finished order. It is relatively easy to

make ball-bands with details of your

own farm or flock but please

remember that if you are selling these

you will need to comply with Trade

Descriptions, Weights and Measures

and possibly GOTS organic

requirements.

01/11/2013 35

Balls of yarn with ball-bands

The somewhat easier approach is to

send us your logo and we can

prepare bands including the required

information together with your own

farm/flock name, breed of sheep and

contact information. We also

customize our ball-bands for yarn

shops. Balls with ball-bands are

relatively labour intensive but are

also, along with twisted skeins, the

form in which most people are used

to purchasing their yarns. Each band

will state the yarn type, composition,

how to wash, whether natural fleece

colour or dyed, spinning mill, animal

type and contact information.

01/11/2013 36

Yarns of different

specifications/gauges Please see our other information

sheets about the aspects of yarns:

both the thickness and the length are

important considerations, along with

the number of plies. Yarns can be

designed using particular types of

fibre or blends to perform in specific

ways: to be bulky, fine, soft, highly

insulating, lacy, drapey, shiny, hard,

strong, smooth, fluffy, stretchy, high

definition and crisp. It is possible,

although we do not have the

equipment (yet?) to make boucle or

roving yarns. We can add coloured

neps, ply different shades to make

marls or blend to heathered shades.

01/11/2013 37

Woollen stuffing

We try not to waste anything! Our

reject wool fibre can go for felt

making, while alpaca goes for duvets.

Waste created between batches or

falling out of the processes can go for

carpet underlay, felt or mixed blend

basic weaving yarns. Noils – the

short bits combed out of worsted

preparation – can go back into

woollen spun yarns, as can neps.

Card waste and chopped up spinning

waste can be shredded to make loose

fluff suitable for stuffing. This is not to

a British Standard, and is thus quite

cheap. It is also compressed for

storage and posting so will need

fluffing up before use.

01/11/2013 38

Balls of yarn without ball-bands

Our ball winder will make 25g, 50g,

100g or larger balls and can also

customize the winding design! The

balls may be left long or flattened into

dough-nut shapes. They are then

packaged into grip-seal polythene

bags, normally 10 or 12 to a bag.

Some customers will have a mix of

hanks, cones and balls as their

finished order. It is relatively easy to

make ball-bands with details of your

own farm or flock but please

remember that if you are selling these

you will need to comply with Trade

Descriptions, Weights and Measures

and possibly GOTS organic

requirements.

01/11/2013 39

01/11/2013 40

Adding value

Raw Fleece

Scour and

Card

Knitting and

weaving yarns

Fabric

Throws Blankets Scarves

Add to blends

£10-20 per Kg.

£15 trade

£40 retail per Kg.

£30-50 trade

£70-180 retail per Kg.

£40 trade £130 retail per metre (o.5 Kg.)

Buy in at

50p-£10 per Kg.

Cost £10

per Kg.

Cost £20-40

per Kg.

Cost £40-80

per Kg.

01/11/2013 41

Adding value

Raw Fleece

Scour and

Card

Knitting and

weaving yarns

Fabric

Throws Blankets Scarves

Garments

and furnishings

Add to blends

£10-20 per Kg.

£15 trade

£40 retail per Kg.

£30-50 trade

£70-180 retail per Kg.

£40 trade £130 retail per metre (o.5 Kg.)

£100-£500 per item (o.5 Kg.)

Buy in at

50p-£10 per Kg.

Cost £10

per Kg.

Cost £20-40

per Kg.

Cost £40-80

per Kg.

Cost

£50-200 per item

Typical breeds for the right product: • Mountain sheep: carpets • Hill sheep: woven clothing, knitwear

and carpets • Downland sheep: woven apparel, hand

knitting and carpets • Lustre sheep: lustrous yarns, knitwear,

hand knitting, woven clothing • Rare/minority: woven clothing, hand

knitting, knitwear and carpets • Left-overs: mulch, felt, stuffing,

insulation

Sheep’s wool – farm to yarn – and beyond!

Quality at every stage: –Breed choice for location and

farming style –Good farming practice –Care and cleanliness at shearing –Quality in processing –Good design and marketing

Organic Wool Questions

• Is it better than non organic?

• How do we know?

• How can we prove it?

• How differentiated are the processes?

• Does this justify a premium price?

• How would a price premium affect

market opportunities?

01/11/2013 44