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Asked by rndomz96 to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 19 Jun 2011.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 16 Jun 2011:
I remember this question from the live chats!
Wool is made of a protein called keratin. Each wool fibre is coarse and wavy and covered in tiny scales. The scales and the waviness of the fibres form pockets of air – this makes wool so warm to wear. Each fibre is also filled with cells. These scales and cells slide against one another giving wool its elasticity.
When wool is washed in either water that is too hot, or the load is too heavy, or the spin is too fast, the wool shrinks because the cells lose the air between them and the scales cling together. Once this happens, it can’t be reversed!
I’m guessing that this doesn’t happen to the wool on the sheep because they are neither washed in hot water, nor are they spin dried!!!
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Tim Millar answered on 16 Jun 2011:
The wool is also processed and stretched before being wound which means its in a different state to when the sheep is wearing it.
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Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 16 Jun 2011:
On the sheep, the wool is always aligned (each individual strand is connected to the sheep at one end). That means that the scales remain aligned. Thus, when the sheep gets wet, these don’t mat as much as when they’ve been carded and spun into wool.
Also, even shrunk wool in a garment will gradually loosen out with time. On the sheep, even where the wool is matted, the constant movement of the sheep’s body is helping to loosen any matting that does occur.
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Comments
rndomz96 commented on :
Thank you so much for answering my quistion ! 🙂 good luck every one wish you the best of luck