January 30, 2016 - sheep 1

I really knew very little about sheep, other than the service animals honored for their wool in nursery rhyme more, until we moved to Iowa.  There were a group of women there who raised sheep for their wool for the purpose of carding, spinning, and weaving, knitting, or crocheting the fibers into fabric. 

Sheep relief block inked with black Daniel Smith water soluble relief ink - first run.

I quickly learned there was good wool and bad wool, based on the fiber "kink" and length.  Long fibers with many crimpy, wavy bends zigzagging close together on a single fiber strand is highly desirable.  This particular group of spinners and weavers preferred to work with the wool "in the grease" for ease of handling. 

First cut relief block on the right.  Print of first cut print on the left with planned revisions marked out with white China marker on the left.  Note the differences between the two - additional material will be removed from this block.

Nature originally provided the thick coat for the sheep to protect it in cold weather.  It follows that in the spring of the year the coat would be the thickest and the fibers would be  longest; this is shearing season.  Once hand done with special hand-tweezer-style scissors, long ago shearing made the transition to power tools.  The goal is to cut the hair as close to the skin as possible, without nicking the skin, to "harvest" the longest fibers possible.

This group then gathered the wool and began carding.  A card is a steel-tined brush on a flat wooden paddle.  When a small hank of fibers are placed on one card, the other card in pulled over the fibers, and in a 180 degree motion to the holding card.  With a carding paddle in each hand, the card tines are aligned and pulled horizontally, in opposite directions, as many times as it takes for the fibers to be aligned and cleaned of any debris.   This small handful of fibers is now called a noil, and in placed in a holding container.  Since many, many noils are needed for any spinning, weaving, knitting, etc. project, carding used to be one of the job responsibilities of children in a busy household.

Today, there are automated carding machines, hand crank carding drum, and the tried and true carding paddles to complete this important task in the production steps of using raw wool.   For the weaver who used a lot of wool, or dyes several colors, etc. the noils are loosely twisted into finger-diameter strands called rovings.   One or more bundles of rovings can be handles at once for dying or scouring, so that the work is more efficient and the product quality and characteristics are more uniform.

Scouring is the process of removing most of the sheep oil, or lanolin, from the fibers.  Many hand spinners prefer to leave the lanolin in the fibers until the spinning is complete, which is called, "spinning in the grease." 

Early print of original relief print.  Several revisions followed this initial run to improve the image!

If you have ever tried a hand lotion with lanolin, you have probably enjoyed its moisturizing and softening effects.....you have also discovered why "in the grease spinning" is preferred!