All about Wool Batts... and then some

Wool has qualities that are enhanced or diminished by many factors. These factors include breed (cross breeding too), sex, age at shearing, care given by the shepherd, and methods of processing. Choosing the right wool for your project may seem daunting at first, but a few simple guidelines will make the process easy. 
For instance, of great importance to the quilter or felting hobbiest is whether or how easily the fibers will felt. Felting is the process that causes some wools to shrink into a hard stiff mass. A quilter desiring to stitch in a thin wool batt into a wall hanging would be wise to choose a Suffolk sheep breed for the wool source or possibly face disaster in the first washing. 
Yet, a felter could scrub the same medium wooled Suffolk or "Down" wool till blue in the face, alternately bath it in hot and ice water, drag the fleece back and forth behind the family car and not make so much as a pill of felt. The term "Down" refers to sheep developed over the centuries in the Downs of England. A wool batt made from a Down breed is a good choice for fine quilting and a poor choice for a felter.  
If the batting shopper seeks mere convenience, then shopping for wool batting may seem pointless and frustrating. Yet, given the warmth, coolness, wonderful feel, ease of stitching, finish and durability of wool, quilters who seek only the best are well rewarded for a small amount of learning. 
Wool batting is made when locks of wool called "staple" are pulled across a host of needles in a device called a card. The card needles unzip the wool fibers from each other and intertwine the fibers so that the natural hooks built into the sides of the fibers relock themselves to each other to form a durable, crush resistant, resilent batt that is extremely light, highly insulating, and both moisture absorbant and moisture releasing.  As the needles are dragged across the wool, the fibers pile up on one of the cards. When sufficient thickness has been acheived, the layer is removed as a layer of batting. 
The card might be pair of blocks of wood through which wires have been driven to form a sort of coarse brush as in a hand card, or the card may be a a large drum around which a needle cloth is wrapped. While the process is the same, the results are excitingly different.  Hand carding produces a product with both loft and consistancy, however, the cards are very small which make it difficult to produce large sections of evenly carded batting. Piecing and layering does have its charms, and will make an old fashioned style quilt just like the ones a self-sufficient pioneer homesteader would make. 
Machine or drum cards, on the other hand, can make larger pieces or even continuous webs of extremely smooth surfaced, precision thickness, defect free wool batting. The only limitations are the width of the carding machine used and the care and skill of the operator.  Cottage craft carding machines can produce reasonable thicknesses, widths and lengths of wool batting, although their output is relatively small because the wool is still processed largely by hand. 
Although it can be confusing, the quilter or felter has a host of choices available when buying wool batting for a particular project. For instance, a quilt historian, theatrical designer, or antique restorer will need to determine the process in use at the time an item was made to determine the type of wool batting to use. Certainly, a "re-enacter" of the War of Independence would need hand carded goods to be really authentic, however, by the time of the Civil War mill driven carding machines were generally in use and produced batting of the highest quality. 
A handcrafter can enhance a "handcrafted" appearance by choosing a hand or small cottage machine carded batt and making hand quit stitches. A wall hanging requiring unobtrusive broad low reliefs will benefit from using thin machine carded wool battings with machine stitching. There is a range of options in between. 
The natural zippers in wool fibers can be carded to make batts of nearly any usable thickness, so the migration problems common to using layers of synthetic battings just can't happen. Needling is generally not necessary.  Since wool is lubricated naturally with lanolin, quilting needles glide through the thickest battings with a minimum of pressure, and unlike cotton will not dull the needle.  Wool's natural lanolin is great on sore hands too. Communicate with the farmers and processors listed in this site. They know their products and want you to be satisfied. 
Now a felter generally wants wool from a sheep that has significant amounts of Spanish or Merino blood in its ancestry. Examples of such sheep are the fine wooled Merino, Debouillet or Rambouillet which have fibers below about 24 microns in diameter and the fine and medium wooled Merino x Down Sheep crossbreeds with fibers up to about 30 microns in diameter.  A comforter builder, on the other hand, is not so limited in choice by sheep breed as by a theory of best use. The very finest or superfine wool can be combed into lofty, easy wash batting, yet cost aside, are there not other voices calling for these wonderful wools?  Fashion and "next to skin" comfort demand this wool for their own. 
"Bearding" is rightfully feared by quilters and will spoil the appearance of a hard won quilt or comforter.  Bearding results when very fine wools, coarse wools, and wool containing hair are used in the batting.  Bearding can be avoided by choosing a medium micron hair free wool, or by sewing the offending fibers into a sack through which the offending fibers cannot move.  In addition, a mechanical process called needling can be used to push carded wool fibers down into the batt, although this process is most often associated with recycled wool. 
To say it another way, when wool batting is to be used plain or unsacked the quilter is wise to avoid fine and superfine wool fibers which are so tiny they can sneak their way through most common quilting materials or coarse fibered wools that can bull their way out and into your skin.  Also avoid wool batting from dirty or contaminated fleeces, "tags," and "skirtings." In the first case, heated sulfuric acid is used in a process called carbonizing to remove vegetable matter from the wool.  Wools so treated feel harsh to the touch because the wool has been damaged by the process. Tags are wool locks even more highly contaminated with animal urine and feces that permanently stain the wool. In the last case, if hair is present on the sheep, it is most likely to be concentrated in the skirtings: belly wool, top knots, and britches that are removed from the fleeces before they are sold to yarn manufacturers.  It is also good advice for users of unsacked wool to avoid reclaimed or recycled wool, which will have a host of short broken fibers from the shredding process and also have a strong likelihood of containing chopped up blended synthetic fibers. Each of these is a scratchy wire whose overall effect is to ruin the feel of the finished product. 
Reprocessed wool products must be sold under the term "Woolen" as opposed to "Wool" or "Virgin Wool" which contain new wool.  Where a substantial liner sack will be used, as in a layette or comforter, the options are much broader.  So while the best choice for wool comforters is wool from the Down breeds, there is a large class of sheep breeds whose wool is eminently suitable for batting provided a proper sack is used.   For instance, very coarse or "strong" wool, or wool containing hair needs a close woven sack made of a cloth like "pellon" to keep fibers imprisoned in the quilt or comforter cover. Medium wools that are free of hair can be hand or machine quilted into a cheesecloth sack.  Your sheep grower or carder will know what kind of handling their  wool will need.  The frugal should think a bit further to see the real savings in using a sack. By making the sack removable, a single batt can be used for multiple quilt or comforter panels. Washing the comforter becomes far simpler, as the lining is simply removed on wash day and the  cover thrown in the machine.   Then, in fifty years, when the sack has worn out, hand quilted wool can be removed for scouring and recarding. 
Our great grandparents wool knowledge began on their first day of life as proud mothers stood over basswood or wickerware cribs and nattered with aunts about tradesmen, patterns, softness, and care.  Today we have to ferret this knowledge out of old books and "research", for what was once broad social knowledge is so lost in the hazy past that it comes down to us in isolated echoes of practical homemaking shot through with the thundering claims of the chemical fiber manufacture trying to convince us of the greater virtue of synthetic ready made.   Rare indeed is even the clerk or fabric shop owner who has bothered to learn basic everyday wool facts once known to all.  What is needed is a sort of Indiana Jones of wool batting knowledge to advise us where the snakes lie and the jewels are hid. There is none, yet. It will take generations to recover what has been lost:  simple knowledge of the proper wool to use for a particular project. 
Your sheep farmer can help.
He or she knows the breed and is likely to know the history and uses of it's wool. The wool processors listed here are another source of guidance.  Every breed and every process has it's own use: whether for clothing worn next to the skin, wind proofs for rock climbers, drapable yard goods for fine fashion, light summer quilts and winter comforters, or as tough deeply dyed carpet fibers that will withstand generations of pounding shoes without collapse.  Tell them what you are after. It would cheer no one to buy lumpy home carded comforter batting when what is needed is a thin machine carded quilting batt.   Nor would the re-enacter be satisfied with a quilted jacket of impeccable smoothness that his great great grandmother couldn't have dreamed of making to a son drawn up in the struggle for an ideal. The thing is that you have choice.  If you are tying your quilt, the type of wool that constitutes the batt is not so important as is having it done up in a sack of cheese cloth or pellon. Then it can be removed when the quilt top is washed or the wool needs to be recarded.  Machine stitched quilts will require a wool from a breed that does not felt. Suffolk has already been mentioned. 
Generally, more crimp is associated with increasing fiber diameter. More crimp means more  resistance to compression. High crimp means less density of the batt and hence less weight. However, since wool is already very light and compression resistant when compared to cotton or synthetic batting of equal thickness, chasing the most crimp will not yield as much benefit for most uses.  An exception is in the camping and climbing industries where the warmth to weight ratio is of paramount importance.  Use "pellon" when the wool is fine, coarse or contains hair, and cheescloth when the wool is fine to medium.   Hand tying sacked wool will make recarding much easier than stitching. 
A useful home decorating technique is to make many quilt and pillow tops, curtain facings, Etc. to fit a single sacked batt. Changing the scheme of a room is as easy as sliding a new cover on the accessories.  Lanolin is the main ingredient in Bag Balm. Give yourself a beauty treatment while you stitch. Wool is sold in many forms and stages of processing.   The further along in the process the more dear the product. While it is true that any processing you are willing to do yourself will reduce the cost of the final project, there is the risk of spoiling wool (at least for the project in mind, having a bunch of colored wool balls lying about to throw at the children isn't so bad).   No quilter lives without "frogs" in the sewing room (ripit, ripit). It is part of the fun.  Scouring, picking, dyeing, and carding are tasks that can be done with just two hand tools and a wash machine. 
Alternatively, the hobbiest with other creatures to kill will appreciate that all these services can be bought and paid for. Check the site for service providers.  The fundamental product is raw or unwashed fleece. In its raw state it may weigh up to 60 percent more than it will when scoured although most scouring losses range from 25 to 40 percent. Ask the farmer to supply you with however many clean yield pounds of wool your project will require.  For example, a king sized quilt requires 5 pounds of carded wool, which could be anywheres from 8 to 10 pounds of raw wool depending on the soil and lanolin content of the wool. You shouldn't have to figure that out. 
Wool has more air trapping ability than any other fiber (natural or man made) by weight. Trapped air is the secret behind insulation. Nothing is more insulating than wool. Wool's chemistry is that of coiled springs made of folded polypeptide chains of keratin proteins.  Inheritantly elastic, it can be stretched to extremes and still relax into its original state. Sheep produce three types of fibers: the true wool fiber, med fibers (hair) wool fibers that may lack crimp, and kemp (short, coarse fibers that are chalky white, brittle, and dye resistant). The  value of these fibers depends on the uses to which the wool will be put. For instance, carpet wool and tweed fabrics benefit from the presence of kemp. For conventional batting uses, wools containing med and kemp fibers are less desirable because they require additional treatments like sacking.
Wool decomposes in extended temperatures above 212 degrees Fahrenheit.  Wool becomes harsh when heated to 212 degrees fahrenheit, however, it becomes soft to the touch when it picks up moisture again. With regard to fire resistance, wool fibers are self extinguishing, but can be burned by the direct application of a very intense heat source. Grease wool (raw unscoured wool) burns more readily than scoured wool. At extremely low temperatures (such as those associated with liquid nitrogen) the fiber becomes brittle.  Wool absorbs water, causing it to swell.  Strong bases dissolve wool, as do concentrated acids or hot dilute acids. Wool is more resistant to acids. 
Wool is elastic in part because of crimp, but mostly because its molecule is essentially a spring.  Wool is not as strong as human hair, but is adequately strong for typical uses and processing. Wool can be weakened by poor nutrition, health, and environmental conditions.  Wool is one of the least dense textile fibers.  Of all the textile fibers, wool is the most hygroscopic or water absorbing.  Wool is highly sensitive to humidity levels.Wool absorbs and retains water and gives off heat.   Wool loses moisture to a dryer atmosphere.  Wool fibers absorb heat, a blessing in warm weather.  Wool is a poor conductor of electricity. 

 

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