When choosing yarn, many craftswomen carefully study the labels and select the most environmentally friendly materials. Someone takes almost "natural" synthetics, and someone is ready to pay for pure wool. In any case, we rarely think about how yarn is made. And if everything is more or less clear with the factory process, then the fact that the best and most expensive yarn is still made by hand can be a revelation for many.
The art of processing animal hair has been known to mankind since ancient times, and over time, the “manual” process has not changed much. But before considering the technology of spinning wool, let's see why it is needed and what kind of spinning wool is. According to international certification standards, wool yarn is of two types - woolmark (natural wool) and pure new wool (pure natural wool). The difference lies in the fact that the wool of the first type allows the presence of an admixture of other fibers in a volume not exceeding 7%. The second type comes without additives, taking into account an error of 0.3%.
Impurities are needed to reduce the cost of the final product and change the quality of the yarn. In addition, for the manufacture of threads, the wool of different types of animals is used, and not all of them have the same texture.
The coat consists of outer hair and down. The outer hair is hard and spiky, and the yarn from it will turn out to be "itchy". But the fluff, on the contrary, is soft and delicate - the threads from it are warm, light and do not irritate the skin. During production, the yarn is not combed very well and acrylic is almost always added to natural wool, so wool with impurities is sold in stores. In hand spinning, only the best fibers are taken, and therefore only pure wool is obtained from the spinning.
Now consider the process of hand-made yarn. The first step is grooming the animals. Angora rabbits are not sheared - they are simply combed out. Lambs, lambs and goats are sheared, but not always along the entire length. From Merino sheep, wool is sheared only from the lower back - it is the most delicate and fluffy.
After that, animal hair is collected, cleaned of small debris and sorted by the length of the fibers. Also, the spinners pull and dry the wool before starting work - thus getting rid of the remnants of debris and uninvited "tenants". The material does not undergo any chemical treatment, because when sprayed with chemicals, all the healing properties of the yarn will be lost.
The finished fibers are combed out - for combing, special combs with curved bristles are used, which allow you to separate light fluff from the main hairline and remove the remaining guard hairs. To get one tow (this is a lump of fluff ready for spinning), you need to make three or four combs.
After the tow is ready, you can start making yarn. You can use a spinning wheel or twist the thread by hand. To knot - this is the name of the process of spinning wool - a thread with your hands, you need to separate a small piece of fluff from the total mass, stretch it and dump it. So that the thread does not break, it is enough just to report new fibers in time.
Previously, spinning wheels were mechanical - combed wool was attached to a special holder on the teeth, a small flagellum was twisted from the lower end of the tow, which was slowly pulled down, and the resulting thread was wound on a spindle. Nowadays, electric spinning wheels are sold, which themselves can pull the thread, twist it and wind it on a peg - the spinner only needs to lay down the fluff and comb the wool with his fingers from time to time.
If you or someone you know has a dog, you can try making some great wool yarn. Dog yarn has always been distinguished by its healing properties. Due to its structure and density, it creates excellent insulation and improves blood circulation.
The manufacturing process does not require much time and effort. You just need to prepare everything and study the stages of work. Usually yarn is made in several stages. We will tell you how to do this in our article.
Before you start making yarn, you need to do the preparatory work. To do this, we need to perform a few steps.
If you have found a way to get it, you need to correctly collect the yarn. After every brushing 
dogs collect hair from the brush. Mechanically remove coarse hairs and dirt. Place the wad in a cloth bag or cardboard box.
IMPORTANT! It is better to avoid storage in plastic bags and take care of good air circulation in the bag.
Washing
After collection, it is necessary to properly wash the workpiece. To do this, place a soapy solution in a basin or bowl. Immerse the product in it, gently press it with your hand and let it soak. After that, draw clean water and get rid of the soap residue until clean water starts to run.
IMPORTANT! All actions should be performed carefully and without sharp twisting in order to avoid breaking the fibers.
Drying wool
Drying is the final stage of preparation. Do not artificially create conditions to speed up the process.
The best source of warm air is sunlight. The circulation of fresh air is also important. If possible, simply take the workpiece outside and spread evenly on the newspaper.
Wool making
After creating several such threads, you can get to work and make various warm clothes.
Please yourself and the whole family with warm and useful things made of dog wool. Store them properly and they will serve you for a long time.
This is a laborious but very enjoyable process. Today we will learn about all the subtleties and analyze wool spinning.
In continuation of the topic of spinning discussed earlier in the article: I propose to consider the features of yarn obtained at home with a real spin!
It turns out that it is difficult to find a real spinner during the day with fire, but still possible! I already have one in mind! 🙂
I managed to learn a lot of new and interesting things about natural yarn. Yes, yes, this is exactly what the spinners proudly call their work - natural yarn, and ask not to compare it with the store. Let's see what's the difference?
Spinning yarn at home and in factories
It would seem that wool is also wool in Africa, what difference can there be? But the difference is huge!
Raw material difference
According to international standards, wool is divided into two classes: natural wool (woolmark) and pure natural wool (pure new wool). Natural wool is wool in which, nevertheless, an admixture of other fibers is allowed in the amount of 7%, and the remaining 93% must be exclusively wool. But pure natural wool is a composition in which only 0.3% of other raw materials are acceptable, and 99.97% is wool, real, pure wool!
What are compounds with impurities for? Firstly, this is a reduction in cost, and secondly, this is the addition of additional properties to the yarn. In addition, the wool of the wool is different. If we talk about the coat of a dog, then they distinguish between guard hair and fluff.
Do you have a dog? Not a small decorative, but a real dog? I have a german shepherd. This is a terrific beast that is not only a friend, a great playmate, but also a very warm, soft furball. Surely you comb the dog, or at least once in your life stroked the dog during the molting period. Hairs remain in the hands or on the comb. Have you looked at them? Some hairs are spiky and not very pleasant to the touch - this is the guard hair, and the rest are soft and very pleasant to the touch fluff! It is from such fluff that the best thread is obtained: soft, tender, pleasant! The dog is covered with fluff when the cold comes, and with outer hair in the warm season. Therefore, downy is a very warm yarn.
Especially for an example, I went and brushed the dog's fur a couple of times with a brush. Look at the photo. Before you is the most common coat, which is obtained after combing the dog. Light hairs are fluff, and dark hairs are guard hairs. If you look closely, you can also see rubbish, which will inevitably fall into the fluff.
So, if we compare pure wool yarn produced by a highly skilled spinner and store-bought, there will be a huge difference. Very often in stores there are shelves and labels that list pure wool yarn, but the composition, nevertheless, includes supplements and substitutes. A frequent "guest" of pure wool factory-made yarn is acrylic. Don't believe? Check it out yourself! 🙂
By international standards, it turns out that in stores they often sell natural wool (woolmark), and from spin we get pure natural wool (pure new wool).
Yarn making process
If you take and compare the process of making spinning yarn and the production process in a factory, you will be horrified.
The spinner, having acquired wool for further processing, carefully looks through it, sorts out and removes unnecessary hairs. Carries out special manipulations, called - chess. Ches is the preparation of wool and the creation of a tow. Tow is fluff prepared directly for spinning. One not very large ball of down requires 3-4 garlic to create a quality tow. In the process of combing, there is an additional sorting of the remaining guard hairs. When the downy tow is ready, the spinner starts the spinning process itself (twisting the thread). There is no chemical treatment during which all the famous healing properties of yarn are lost. The resulting thread can already be used, or you can screw it up. The knotting process is the twisting of two finished threads. The twisted thread is less deformed.
In the hand spinning process, there is a large volume of rejected hair. This makes a real, responsible spinner very vigilant about the raw materials purchased for spinning. It also increases the cost of finished yarn. But, it's better to know what you pay for than to pay for a pig in a poke!
How does this process work in the factory? The purchased raw material goes to the wool pre-cleaning factory. The wool of sheep is most often used. You have probably seen what sheep look like and where they live. So, after shearing and collecting wool, a diverse admixture of everything in the world in its composition reaches 80%. Can you imagine how many foreign particles will be rejected before wool purity is achieved? But is this purity? You understand very well that if the factory were to reject as carefully as spinning all the extra hairs, then it would be close to ruin. But since further actions with yarn significantly soften it, almost all raw materials are used.
To clean the wool from dirt, it is washed in water with the addition of strong detergents of synthetic origin. This action is done with wool 5-6 times. After washing, the wool is pressed on special machines and transported to the drying shop, where the temperature can reach 90 degrees Celsius.
For a moment, imagine the usual shampooing! Every woman knows that hair is demanding in everything from washing to drying. Shampoo is not suitable - lifeless hair. Dry the wrong way - the ends split. Combing, combing, other styling procedures - worsen the condition of the hair. Since childhood, we are told that wet hair should not be subjected to twisting, it is very brittle at this moment. Washed with warm water, the hair fluffed up its scales and, while it dries, folds them in place. And wool is the same hair! Imagine how lifeless they reach us!!!
Let's go back to the factory. After drying, the wool cools down for 1-2 days, after which it is pressed and stored in a warehouse, waiting for the yarn or fabric factory to buy and pick it up.
The spinning mill also has various spinning systems. And they consist of many lengthy steps (loosening, scutching, mixing, carding, roving, spinning). But you don’t need to reset such a process as staining. And they paint not with natural paints, but with special ones, so that the paint is preserved and does not fade. The finished yarn is steamed and then cooled. The cooled yarn must still settle and after that it is packaged for sale.
It is not necessary to say that the resulting yarn retained its original heat-insulating and healing properties. Yes, factory-made woolen yarn warms, but not as much as the original one, and they hardly heal. And I know that you, my dear readers, are from different places of residence, with different climates and very often cold. So now you are savvy and aware of all the differences in yarn. If it is really cold in winter (and for some already in autumn), then it is preferable to buy hand-spun yarn from a proven spinner.
Comparing factory-made yarn with handmade yarn is like comparing delicious home-made yarns with store-bought ones. Again, it is difficult to compare a hand-made thing and a thing bought in a store. A hand-knitted thing retains the warmth of hands, care and love. The spinner also puts her care, warmth and kindness into the yarn. Unfortunately, a car cannot do this.
yarn cost
It will not remain a secret for anyone that the cost of hand-made yarn is much higher than that of factory-made yarn. It is understandable, a spinner spends much more time and effort on one skein than a factory on a batch.
A good spinner that spins quality yarn can produce 150 to 350 grams of yarn in 18 hours of continuous operation. Based on this, the cost is from 500 to 1000 rubles. for a hundred gram skein. This cost corresponds to 5000-10000 per kg of yarn.
For one shift, the factory can produce from 10 to 15 tons of yarn.
Factory-made yarn has a relatively low cost. For example, Valya's pure wool yarn from the Semenov factory is sold in the shop at the factory in skeins of 50 grams for 52 rubles, which is 104 rubles per 100 grams, respectively. And the Orenburg yarn of 20% wool and 80% angora in skeins of 50 grams for 406 rubles, this is 812 rubles per 100 grams - I took this yarn on socks, because. She's tough, but warm. And after the above comparison, it becomes clear that the cost of hand-spun yarn is not so high!
Spinner earnings
Well, who doesn't like to save, save wisely! Everyone is trying to save the family budget and even replenish it. I am convinced that many of you, after reading the article, have decided to start spinning and knitting from the spun the most real healing and warming things.
Let's see if the spinner gets a lot.
After wandering through the expanses of the Internet and finding a few suggestions, I share with you what I found.
You can find uncombed sheep's yarn with primary processing (that is, free from visible contamination) at a cost of 400 rubles per 1 kg. If we assume that this is excellent wool, and after combing at least 80% will remain for further work - this is 800 grams, then at the output we will have 16 skeins of 50 grams. The cost of materials, taking into account those rejected for 1 skein, will be 25 rubles.
As we found out earlier, in 18 hours a spinner can spin 150-350 grams of yarn. These are 3-7 balls weighing 50 grams. Let's take for calculation the average output of 250 grams of yarn (5 skeins of 50 grams each) and suppose the spinner works all day, i.e. 8 ocloc'k. During these 8 hours, she can spin 110 grams. These are 2 skeins weighing 50 grams + a small tail.
It should be taken into account that spinners selling yarn of their own production work not only when they are spinning, but also when they are looking for suppliers of raw materials, making deals, advertising goods, communicating with buyers, and looking for partners. This whole process takes a huge amount of time, which is also included in the cost of the yarn. This time is even a little more than the production process itself - this is what I tell you as the owner of the blog. But we take the best (incubator conditions) and will take for calculations equal to the production time. We produced 2 balls of yarn in a day, we will also take 1 day for the rest of the working moments.
Or we will distribute - we spin half of the day, we do other things half. It turns out that in one day we make 1 ball and carry out distribution work.
The cost of purchased wool for 1 skein is 25 rubles. One skein of finished yarn costs 500 rubles. Subtract from the cost of finished yarn the purchase price of raw materials 25 rubles and get the added cost equal to 475 rubles. This is the payment for one working day of a spinner. We take 5 working days a week and multiply by 4 weeks in a month, it turns out 25 working days (do not swear at the accountant, we calculate the approximate benefit 🙂). Earning 475 rubles a day for 25 days, the spinner earns 9500 rubles. Agree that this is not so much for such a titanic work!
And if you consider that we did not take into account tools, consumables and resources, then it turns out even less. A beginner spinner will transfer more than one kilogram of raw materials in order to learn, because even professionals sometimes have a marriage, what can we say about beginners. And not everyone can knit from defective yarn, and not everyone will buy it even at a discount. No one argues that a spinner can earn much more, but this is when their own customer base is built up, word of mouth and ads placed in huge quantities begin to work!
Therefore, there is only one verdict - if there is no one to teach you, but there is a desire and an opportunity to get raw materials cheaply, spin for pleasure, not chasing income, otherwise the arrow in the image above will go in the opposite direction. Spinning yarn is a laborious and responsible process that needs to be learned from an early age in order to achieve an effect by a conscious period of life. And if you want to knit from hand-spun yarn, buy from proven spinners.
Get in line for natural yarn! 🙂 In the next review, there will be an opportunity to place an order for first-class yarn!
You can order yarn from a real spinner here on this page:
Do not forget to add a useful MK to your bookmarks! 😉
A. Saponenko U. Saponenko
Turning wool into yarn consists of the following operations: washing, drying, combing, spinning, twisting.
Washing
Initially, sheep's wool must be washed, as a lot of dirt accumulates in it during the time spent by the animal on grazing and in the barn.
It is not forbidden to wash the wool after shearing, but it is better to wash an unshorn sheep with soap (in this case it will be easier to process the wool in the future). Wash the sheep with warm water in a bath or trough. Soaps do not regret it. If the coat is very dirty, change the water several times. Finish bathing with rinsing. This procedure is carried out on a warm sunny day so that the sheep does not catch a cold. After the animal is thoroughly wiped and allowed to dry. Then start cutting. If the sheep was not bathed in front of it, the wool must be washed with laundry soap at the end of work, it is better to pre-soak it. During the washing process, the water must be changed frequently, so the wool may "leak" along with the drained liquid. To prevent this from happening, "throw away" the wool on a sieve or in a willow basket. At the end, rinse the wool, let it drain and dry.
Drying
It is necessary to dry the wool well. In summer it is done in the sun, and in winter on stoves or steam heating batteries.
Combing
Combing is necessary in order for the wool to become uniform, without shreds, then it will be easier to spin, and the yarn will become of better quality, moreover, it is combed immediately after drying, since the wool absorbs moisture well.
For combing, two brushes are used, each of which is a board equipped with a handle and metal teeth bent towards the handle (Fig. 1). They take wool (about a handful), evenly distribute it over the entire toothed surface of the brush and comb it while sitting, putting the brush with wool on the knee with the teeth up, moving the other brush as shown in Fig. 2. Remove the hair from the brushes as follows. The brushes are turned so that their handles are one above the other (Fig. 3) and the hair is “combed” with the upper brush from the lower one.
Spinning
Spinning is the formation of thread from wool. This is done using a spindle (Fig. 4), a self-spinning wheel with a foot drive or an electric spinning wheel.
The spindle spinning method is the most difficult to perform. And it’s good if, in addition to the spindle, a comb on a leg (for yarn) was also preserved in the house from the grandmother. Wool is attached to the comb at the level of the head of a seated person. They take the spindle in the right hand, begin to rotate it clockwise between the thumb and forefinger, at the same time pinching off and feeding the wool onto the spindle, which will then be twisted into a thread.
Rice. 4. Wool spindle
Rice. 5. Spindle for twisting (twisting) threads
For convenience, it is allowed to hang the spindle on a thread 20 ... 30 cm long. The thickness of the thread depends on the amount of plucked wool - the more you pluck, the thicker the thread will turn out. For greater strength, a bobbin thread is allowed into the yarn, winding the wool around it.
When spinning on a self-spinning wheel, the job is to evenly feed the wool into the hole in the flyer.
Twisting (twisting) is the interlacing of several threads together. This operation is performed again with the help of a spindle or self-spinning wheel. Moreover, the spindle here needs a special one (Fig. 5) and rotate it counterclockwise, holding it in the right hand, and holding the thread with the left. It is much easier to do the spinning on a self-spinning wheel: they connect two threads, fix them on a spool and "launch" the self-spinning wheel into work.
V. Cook
First of all, the sheared wool must be sorted into clean (without burrs, foreign debris and pollution), clogged and polluted. Wool that needs to be cleaned is sorted out, removing impurities, piles and other "substandard" manually.
Wool sheared from a sheep is washed in an enameled basin in warm water at 30 ... 35 ° C (without soap, otherwise it will dry out), and washed in several waters. Wool is not rubbed, but only squeezed out by hand, slowly turning over layer by layer. Do not use any cleaning chemicals! It is most convenient to wring out the wool during the final rinse in the centrifuge of the washing machine. Dry it indoors, spreading it in a thin layer on a cloth, tarpaulin.
The washed and dried wool is plucked and combed on a long-toothed metal comb.
It is good to comb the wool with the same brushes that are used in wool-spinning factories for cleaning the rollers and drums of carding machines. The brush is a small rectangular board (box) with a handle.
The board is stuffed with rubberized fabric with wire hooks.
Rice. one.
Complete electric spinning wheel:
1 - "spinning" drive; 4 - starting node; 3 - intermediate rheostat;
2 - main drive; 5 - engine
Rice. 2.
"Spinning" knot:
a - spindle;
b - flyer;
c - coil
When spinning, the combed wool is collected into twigs and tied to a convenient stand, from where it is easy to pluck the wool in the required portion and let it into the thread.
In the Moscow region 10 years ago there was an opportunity to purchase electric spinning wheels in Svet stores. But these spinning wheels, to the shame of the designers, were suitable only for connecting and twisting yarn, as well as for decorating shop windows.
Therefore, for spinning sheep wool, rabbit and dog fluff, I had to invent my own electric spinning wheel, which I offer to readers.
The spinning wheel (Fig. 1) consists of a base made of 10 mm plywood, on which an electric motor (from a sewing machine), an intermediate and main drive, and a spinning unit (spindle with flyer and bobbin) are mounted. The engine is connected to the network through a rheostat, which makes it possible to smoothly adjust the speed of the spinning unit. Between the engine and the intermediate drive, as between the intermediate and main drives, rotation is transmitted by V-belts, and from the main drive to the coil and spindle - by a belt made of twisted linen thread. A nylon thread is also suitable, but it breaks more often. The thread is pulled with a cross for spinning, and for twisting the threads - by crossing the threads in a horizontal plane. The tension of the belt is produced by the displacement of the spindle. When making a spindle, flyer and spool, adhere to the dimensions indicated in fig. 2.
Sometimes dry wool does not spin well, then it needs to be combed again, lightly lubricating it with sewing machine oil. (The oil is applied with a feather.)
Before dyeing, in order to get an even, shiny tone, the yarn is thoroughly washed - otherwise the paint will lie unevenly. But first, the yarn intended for dyeing is twisted into threads of the thickness that will be required for further knitting. Then the resulting threads are wound (100 g each, no more) like a lasso, which is loosely tied with woolen threads in four to six places in a circle.
To wash 1 kg of yarn, you need one bar of laundry soap. It is better not to use washing powder. For some reason, it changes the structure of the coat and it becomes brittle. Finely chopped or planed soap is diluted in warm water to foam. All pieces of it should dissolve. The threads are washed, slightly squeezing and mixing, but not twisting. It is not worth rubbing sharply, squeezing and twisting strongly - the threads will flatten and lose their fluffiness. Water in the process of "washing" is changed several times, dissolving new portions of soap.
If the threads retain a grayish tint even after washing, then they are bleached before dyeing, otherwise the acquired color will not be pure, bright. To do this, the skeins are gently boiled for 20 ... 30 minutes in a solution of baby soap, and make sure that the water completely covers the yarn. After washing and boiling, the threads are rinsed in warm water so that the soap comes off completely. The threads are washed and dyed in an enameled container.
P.S. Woolen things are indispensable in our cold weather. And to make the room warm and cozy, you can choose excellent inexpensive carpets and hang them over the bed, as our grandmothers did, now it is fashionable and practical.
Mankind has long learned to use the woolen cover of domestic animals for their needs. Animals were sheared, wool was prepared, and later things were knitted from yarn, fabric was made. Unlike today, when everything is made with special equipment, except for shearing cattle, our ancestors made yarn by hand.
The process was quite lengthy and labor intensive. To process the sheared fur into a finished thread, a lot of time was spent at the spinning wheel. Not without reason in Russian fairy tales, girls and women are constantly described sitting behind this device.
The coat is heterogeneous, and consists of fluff, soft and guard hairs. If the awn is not separated, then the final product made from such raw materials will be prickly and unpleasant. Therefore, in order to avoid manual sorting, first “combing” is carried out, obtaining the most delicate downy material tow. Weightless Orenburg shawls are made from it. In the future, during the haircut, I capture a little more than half the length of the hair.
Such material is also quite soft, easy to process and forms the basis for simple yarn. It was combed, getting rid of various natural debris. Sometimes, before spinning, the raw material was soaked to give softer properties, followed by drying in the sun. The wool remaining after the final shearing is either combed to remove the outer hair, followed by soaking and drying, or without treatment, it is put on rough material.
Spinning accessories
Before the automation of the process, only two main tools were used: a spindle made of wood and a weight for a spinning wheel (spindle). Often at home they did without it.
To simplify the process and make it more convenient, they used a board (spinning wheel) fixed at the level of the face.
Manufacturing technology
- A small fur ball of tows was tied to a spinning board.
- A small strand of wool was carefully pulled out, up to 5 centimeters wide and up to 10 long.
- I twisted it with the help of a spindle into a thread until the moment when the thread begins to gather in rings.
- The finished piece was fixed on a spinning wheel at one end.
- The next piece of fluff was connected to the free end and twisted with a spindle until rings were formed.
- Further, the process also occurs, gradually adding new portions of the tow.
- Excess thread that interferes with work is wound on a spinning wheel.
When a fairly large amount of finished material is formed, it is twisted into a ball and continues to be spun again. If the thread broke in the process, its ends were moistened, a little fluff was added and twisted again.
In order to obtain a multi-colored, practical material for future clothing in which one could work, various natural dyes were used. As a rule, these were decoctions of plants that give the desired color, but sometimes mineral compounds were used, like ocher.
After preparing the sheared wool coat, it was placed in a special vat with ready-made dye, and boiled for some time. After drying, they carried out another comb to soften and unravel the tow. But most of all, the dazzling white color of the finished yarn was appreciated.
As you can see, it was quite a long and painstaking work. But, having spent so much energy and so much time, our ancestors provided themselves not only with warm clothes for cold winters, but also with the most exquisite things that still amaze the whole world with their quality and originality of execution. It would be useful to recall the Orenburg and Pavlovo-Posad products, which are of high value and demand in Western countries.