Wool is the winter coat of fleece sheared from a sheep when the weather had warmed up enough for the animal to get along without it. The shearing is an expert operation that should get the complete fleece off in one piece without wounding the sheep. It is now done with power clippers. Originally it was done with hand shears that looked a lot like spring backed grass clippers.
It was first necessary to get out of the fleece all of the trash that the sheep had managed to pick up. There were usually bits of sticks, burrs, as well as "feltings", places where the wool had become matted into hopeless knots. The fleece was then thoroughly scoured and then was often dyed "in the wool".
Indigo was the favorite dye- it was of course blue. Madder was used for red, if it could be had. These two were importations. They were supplemented by yellows and browns made by boiling various dyes which could be "set" as permanent colour, among them are goldenrod, iris and pokeberry.
Along with the dirt, scouring removed all the natural grease from the fleece and it had to be saturated with lard oil before it would submit to carding. Carding was a job for grandmothers who weren't able to do much else and who had no teeth to be set on edge by it.
The object of carding was to fluff the wool and mix it thoroughly and evenly, not to straighten it. It was done by two rectangle paddles, both set thickly with wire teeth that curved back a little toward the handle.
A small bunch of wool was put between them and one paddle was pulled repeatedly across the other with the teeth opposed. To strip the card "sliver" of wool out, the moving upper paddle was reversed and the two cards were rubbed gently back and forth against each other. The resulting sliver was ready to be spun into ordinary woolen yarn. If it was desired to spin worsted, in which the fibers are laid as parallel as possible, a further combing operation was needed that straightened the fibers and removed the short ones.
Fibers can be easily pulled out of a wad of wool and twisted into a short crude thread between thumb and finger. As the twist gets up toward the wad, it will begin to "draft" more fibers into itself and if uncontrolled, it will gather too many and make a lump or slub. It is the educated control of the draft that makes a good spinster (a lady who could spin a mile of thread a day is a spinster).
Spinning is simply twisting. It isn't simply practical to spin a long continuous thread without some kind of mechanical help; only spiders can do that. The simplest aid is as old as spinning. It is the hand spindle which was used at least three thousand years B.C. and is still used in Asia and Africa.
The spindle is a tapered stick about eight inches long, passing through a wood or clay flywheel, called the whorl, which fixed to a couple of inches from the thicker end. A bit of finger twisted thread is made, wrapped a few turns on the long end of the spindle and scoured near the point with a hitch. Then the spindle is suspended by the yarn and given a twirl. The whorl keeps it turning for quite a while and as it turns it twists the yarn into thread. Unspun yarn is held in the right hand and the left controls the draft. When the spindle slows down, it is given a fresh start before it can begin reversing itself. When the spun yarn grows too long to be handled conveniently, it is wound on the spindle near the whorl; its' end is hitched near the point and the operation is repeated. It is easy to take a new sliver from the mass of wool held on the distall under the left arm and work into the end of the spun thread.
The spinning wheel in its simplest form, which was the wool wheel, was nothing more than a mechanical way of rotating a spindle. The spindle itself was exactly like the hand spindle except that the whorl had a groove around it for a belt and it worked in a horizontal position instead of a vertical one. The belt passed from the whorl around a large wheel that the spinster, standing by it, turned or stopped at will with her right hand or with a wooden "wheel finger". The was a stick about nine inches long with a knot on one end so that it could readily catch a spoke. Some spinsters put a child on the job of turning the wheel.
The yarn was spun off the tip of the spindle and was held horizontally in the same axis with the spindle as it was twisted. To wind finished yarn onto the spindle, the spinster moved her handle toward the wheel until the yarn was at a right angle to the spindle. She gave the wheel a gentle push and the yarn was wound on it. The bobbin could be replaced when it was full without the spinster having to stop and wind yarn off.
It was eventually wound off, however, on a hand reel called a niddy nodder (knitty- knotter), or on pegs into the spokes of the spinning wheel or in later days, on a clock reel that clicked when forty strands had been wound. Any of these systems produced forty strand hanks, fifty four inches around. Seven hanks or knots of wool made a skein. Six skeins were a good day's spinning at the end of which the spinster had walked miles - half of them backward.
<-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^-><-^->
Shearing
Wool fashion starts when a skilled shearer, using electric shears, removes a fleece from a sheep in less than five minutes. An expert shearer can shear more than 100 sheep a day.
Grading
Individual fleeces are carefully inspected by wool graders who classify raw wool according to average diameter (fineness) and length of the fibers. Grading determines value and the final use of the wool. Short fibers, three inches long or less, are usually spun into woolen yarns. The longer fibers, more than three inches long, are usually spun into worsted yarns.
Washing and Scouring
The cleaning process removes grease, vegetable matter and dirt from the raw wool. A set of rakes moves the fleece through a series of tubs (called the scouring train) which contain a detergent solution followed by clear water rinses. It them passes through squeeze rolls, and a conveyor carries the clean wool to a hot-air drying chamber. The scouring process removes the natural wool grease (lanolin) which is purified and used in creams, soaps, and cosmetic products.
Blending
Wools from several different lots are blended and mechanically mixed to achieve uniform quality and color.
Stock Dyeing
Wool can be dyed at one of these stages of processing. Wool dyed immediately after it is washed and blended is stock dyed.
Carding
The carding process uses a system of wire rollers to straighten the fibers and prepare the wool for spinning. The untangled wool fibers lie parallel and form a fine web of continuous strips or "slivers".
Owlers / Coastguard / Home / Smuggling
From :-
http://www.bmhs.ednet.ns.ca/tourism/wool.htm
http://www.sheepusa.org/woolproc.htm
http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/13991HistoryofWoolProduction.html
See an "Overview of Wool Processing" at:-
http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/sheep/ANSC442/Semprojs/wool/wool_processing.htm