//Animal fibres//
Silk is an animal fibre that has been produced for over 4.000 years, primarily in China and Southeast Asia. Silk has always been a "product for kings" for various reasons including its complicated production, so it is accordingly sought-after and expensive. Silk fibres come from the caterpillars of certain butterfly species which, similar to spiders, produce long threads. The caterpillars, who feed almost exclusively on the leaves of the mulberry tree, spin a cocoon with the thread they produce. It serves the caterpillar for pupation and transformation into a butterfly. There is the so-called mulberry silk from reared caterpillars and the wild silk from wild butterflies.
The silkworms create the thread, when spinning a cocoon around themselves. To do this, the silkworm squeezes a thick pulp from 2 "spinnerets" situated under its mouth which solidifies, when it comes into contact with the air. These two continuous threads are glued together by additional sericin. This silk gum makes silk naturally hard, brittle and dull. Only after degumming, which can be done in various ways, the characteristic properties of silk start to unfold.
For certain types of fabrics that are supposed to have a crisper feel, the sericin is only partly removed. This continuous thread is reeled from the cocoon and is approx. 1.000 m long. The continuous thread is reeled and then processed as single thread or twine. The yarn/twine count is what later governs the appearance of the fabric structure.
Properties of the silk from mulberry silkworms, which primarily stands for the term silk.
Mulberry silk is very fine and smooth. Under the microscope it can even be confused with synthetic fibres. After degumming, silk has a natural sheen which is not reduced by exposure to water. It has a very light, almost white colour. It can be woven (plain as well as patterned), arrased and knitted, and also works very well as a base for printing. Silk can be dyed or printed with very bright colours. However, of all animal fibres, it has the lowest lightfastness. It can absorb up to 30% of its own weight in water.
Silk is extremely skin-friendly. Silk cools in the summer and warms in the winter.
Wild silk, also called schappe silk: This silk is obtained from the cocoons of wild silk and after opening, is spun almost like in the worsted spinning process (meaning no continuous thread material). There are a multitude of yarn and fabric variations, smooth like schappe silk or coarse, with structure e.g. tussah or bourette silk.
These do not have the fine sheen of mulberry silk.
Angora / WA
Originally, the Angora goat is from the region around today's Turkish capital Ankara. Ankara used to be called Angora.
Today, Angora goats for wool production outside Turkey are bred mainly in Australia, the US, Lesotho, Madagascar and especially South Africa. These countries and regions offer the ideal living conditions for the animal, which is sensitive to humidity. Angora and mohair goats are practically identical. The term mohair goat is more common. The Angora goat is slightly smaller than the mohair goat.
Angora/mohair wool can be divided into three so-called degrees of fineness. These depend on how old the goat is when being shorn. A distinction is made between baby mohair, young goat mohair and adult mohair. The superfine baby mohair wool is obtained in the first shearing of an Angora goat, at the age of six months. The fibre fineness is between 24 to 29 microns. The older the goat, the coarser the wool. Young mohair goat wool has a fineness of 30 to 33 microns and is from young, not fully grown animals. It is considered medium-quality mohair wool.
Fully grown adult mohair goat wool is firmer and thicker with a thickness of 34 to 40 microns. Angora goats are usually shorn twice a year. The total yield is between 2.5 to 4 kilograms of wool per animal. The beautiful sheen and the very white material give a particularly fine look to many yarns/fabrics. Angora/mohair is mainly spun with wool.
Also see Mohair
Vicuña / WG
The vicuña is the most elusive and noble of all Andean animals. The Inca used to prepare the meat as an offering for their gods.
Vicuñas are the wild form of the domesticated alpacas. They also live in herds, but the fibre material cannot be shorn. Instead, it is picked up and collected by hand. This is the reason for the extremely high price and the very small quantities of these fibres.
The colours are similar to those of the alpacas.
Camel-Hair / WK
The camel is a desert animal and lives in parts of Asia and North Africa. These two-humped animals are ruminants. The fine undercoat of their fur protects them from the rough climate and extreme temperature changes.
This hair falls out every spring. It is light to dark brown, soft and silky, with a beautiful, natural sheen. The coat consists of extremely fine lanugo and the slightly longer and thicker kemp. These cannot be spun. Camel hair is rarely used to produce worsted yarn, but instead primarily employed in woollen fabrics. Usually natural-coloured or also mélange, since camel hair is difficult to dye and loses its elegant sheen when done so. Plain or colour-woven camel fabrics for jackets and coats are particularly elegant and of high-quality.
Llama / WL
The llama is a camel sheep and lives in the Andes of South America. It is the largest and heaviest animal of this family and measures 1.80 m tall and 1.20 m long. Its fur is thick, unruly and mat; for this reason, it is considered the least valuable of this species.
Llamas produce approx. 4 kg of fibre material per year. Mainly in the colours white, brown, grey and black. These fibres are difficult to dye and are therefore mainly processed in their natural colours. Llama wool is often used as untreated knitting yarn. In outerwear it is used in the form of woollen yarns for soft coating.
The Incas kept llamas as livestock and sacrificial animals. In religious ceremonies, the llama was a symbol that honoured of the sun god. To this day, practically every family in the Andean Highlands of Peru and Bolivia keep several of these animals.
The mohair goat originally comes from Eastern Turkey and is still bred there today; but also in South Africa, the Southern United States, and in many Asian countries.
The mohair goat, family of the Angora goat, has long, curly, glossy white hair; 120-150 mm in length. Soft, silky, and lightweight. They are durable and have a pleasant, natural sheen. For price and technical reasons, they are usually processed in combination with new wool.
In men's outerwear, it is used mainly for fine, glossy worsted fabric. In ladies' wear the term mohair usually stands for voluminous, but also lightweight and cosy woollen yarn coatings with a unique sheen. Mohair is also frequently used for bouclé yarn and fabrics.
Strictly speaking, the wool/fur of the angora rabbit is not premium animal hair. It is almost impossible to spin on its own. Although it is extraordinarily soft and cosy, it is also very short and easily falls out of the roving.
It is almost exclusively used in hand knitting; always with the warning that it should not be swallowed.
Due to the shared name, it is often confused with the goats' Angora.
Wool can be a product that has been completely recycled, e.g. shoddy from old knitting or woven fabric or from waste products created in wool yarn or woollen fabric production. Often from virgin wool blends and fibre preparations mentioned above.
This is usually done with coarser, heavier woollen yarn articles because the required fibre length for spinning does not need to be as long as for worsted yarn.
The alpaca, like the llama, is an animal that is bred by the Andean highlanders of Peru and Bolivia to supply wool and meat. The alpaca is the domesticated version of the Vicuña. Apart from these, there are also wild alpacas that live in the highlands.
Alpaca hair has a flat crimp, is very fine and has a silky sheen. It can be processed both as worsted and woollen yarn. Alpaca is one of the highest-quality animal fibres, so it is almost exclusively used in its various natural colours. There are finer, more expensive, delicate Suri alpacas and Huacaya alpacas. These are bred in a ratio of approximately 10:1.
Compared to the Suri, the hair of the Huacaya is shorter and woollier. As is the case with all these animals, baby alpaca is especially fine and soft; accordingly, more luxurious and expensive.
Cashmere is synonymous to luxury in all textile products.
The Cashmere goat lives in Asia at altitudes of over 1.500 m. The best fibre material comes from Inner Mongolia as well as Outer Mongolia, Afghanistan and Iran. It is a very tough animal, which can stand even the lowest temperatures very well. For protection from the cold, the animal produces an open fur with long, relatively coarse hair. The value, however, is in the underwool: the fluff, which is extremely soft, light and silky. The finest (and most expensive) fluff is white; but there are also all shades of browns, greyish browns and reddish browns.
The fibres have a diameter of 1 to 16 microns and are therefore much finer than those of normal merino wool.
In May, the period of pelage, the animals are rounded up and the outer long hair is cut. The lanugo is then combed out using finer and finer combs. Each animal yields between 150 g to 200 g.
Cashmere can be spun as worsted or woollen yarn and as knitting yarn. Due to its high cost, it is also used as a blend component with all fine fibres such as wool, silk or superfine cotton. High-quality cashmere, especially that which has not been bleached during processing, rarely pills. Dyed on white-base material, it is completely unproblematic.
If the fibres are bleached initially and then dyed in medium colours, the scale structure of the fibre gets damaged and pilling increases. Originally darker hair is either processed in its natural colour, or (often by admixing recycled weave or knit material) dyed over.
Only new sheep's wool that has not undergone any processing may be called pure virgin wool. The abbreviation WV stands for nothing other than Virgin Wool. In the clothing industry, primarily two types of wool are used:
Merino wool, mainly bred in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and South America. Merino wool is one of the finest wool qualities and is the mostly used wool in all clothing sectors. The fibre count is approx. Between 13 to 27 microns. Micron is the unit for the fibre diameter and means 1 thousandth mm (from Greek, pronounced mu). Generally, the wool is used in a count range from 18 to 25 microns. Mainly worsted yarn qualities. The fibres are of varying lengths, very fine and very frizzy, which also makes them very elastic. The rule is: the finer the wool, the more it can be spun out, i.e. the finer the yarn will be and the lighter the fabric will be.
The animals are shorn once a year. A good shearer can shear about 350 sheep in 9 hours. The weight of one fleece is between 6 to 10 kg. The parts of the fleece are separated and classified, as not all parts are of the same quality. Then the wool is sold at auctions, usually already washed in the countries of origin and then shipped. Lanolin is obtained in the washing process. It is a high-quality fat, used especially in the cosmetics industry.
Crossbreds, bred in New Zealand, Europe, Russia and South America. Crossbred wool supplies much coarser material and, in clothing, is primarily used as woollen yarn, e.g. for qualities like Shetland, Scottish tweeds and Harris tweeds. The hairs are long and smooth, not very frizzy and not as soft. Beyond that, it is used in carpets, furniture/upholstery fabric and knitting yarn. This wool is extremely hard-wearing. The fibre count starts at approx. 30 microns. Approx. 2-3 kg fleece fibre material is obtained per shearing.
Lambswool, the only wool that comes from the very first shearing of the sheep may be called lambswool. Lambswool is particularly soft and very frizzy. Lambswool is used primarily for knitwear.
Properties of Virgin Wool
When looking at its chemical structure, virgin wool is comparable to human hair, however, it is generally only half as thick // Virgin wool consists of keratin and has a scale structure on the surface of the fibre, which is why it can felt // Virgin wool is a natural product, sustainable and recyclable // Virgin wool is excellent for dyeing and can be dyed with particular authenticity, because the fibre forms a chemical bond with the dye // Virgin wool is not sensitive to acid, it is actually dyed with the help of acid. Virgin wool has an elegant, matte sheen and pleasant feel // Virgin wool does not bag and always goes back to its original shape quickly. // Virgin wool absorbs up to 35% moisture as well as sweat // Virgin wool is "air-conditioning" // Due to the natural frizz of the fibre, wool yarns entrap air of up to 80% of their weight // Note: It is not the fibre that warms, but the air that is entrapped in it //
Virgin wool is of low flammability. Nowadays, many technical areas of application make use of this property // Virgin wool is naturally elastic (linen or cotton do not possess this property). This characteristic feature is increased by the combined use with lycra or similar materials // Virgin wool can felt when required // Virgin wool is naturally resistant to dirt and stains, it is easy to wash and clean // Virgin wool can be easily blended and processed in combination with natural or synthetic fibres, making it possible to produce technical or optical effects // Blending it however, means that it is no longer pure virgin wool //
The yack is a domesticated form of the wild Yack, a type of cattle that is kept as livestock in the Himalayan mountains and Mongolia. Due to the local climate conditions, it has a fine, soft fluff on its underbelly to protect it from the cold — similar to the Cashmere goat. Its fluff is also combed out.
This wool, which exists in very small quantities, is mainly used in knitwear and rarely for woven material.