60 Fun Facts About Wool

Wool consists mainly of which structural protein, also found in human hair and nails?

Wool's keratin is richer in sulfur than silk's fibroin because it contains a lot of cystine, whose disulfide bonds can be reshaped by heat or chemicals.

Roughly what fraction of its own weight in water can wool absorb?

Despite that thirst, wool fibres are not hollow; the moisture is held inside the fibre structure, which is why damp wool still feels warm.

Fleece straight off the sheep, still full of grease and dirt, is known in the trade as what?

It is also called greasy wool or wool in the grease, and it must be scoured before it can be used commercially.

Which property is the single most important factor in determining a fleece's quality and price?

Diameter is measured in microns; the finest Australasian Merino bales, 16.9 microns and finer, earn the elite 1PP mark.

What does the 'Super S' number on a fine wool suit fabric actually describe?

Super 100 means fibres of 18.75 micrometres or finer on average, and every step of ten in the S number lowers that limit by half a micrometre.

Which anthrax illness spread by raw fleece took its common name from a textile-trade job?

Cuts from sorting or baling contaminated fleece let Bacillus anthracis enter the skin, a hazard tamed by modern disinfection.

Which type of wool yarn is strong, long-staple and combed, giving a smooth hard surface used in suiting?

Woolen yarn, by contrast, is soft, short-staple and carded, and traditional weavers combined woolen weft with worsted warp.

Recycled wool made by tearing apart existing fabric and respinning it is traditionally called what?

The process was invented in the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire, where it sustained a whole local microeconomy.

The presiding officer of the House of Lords sits on a wool-stuffed seat known as what?

Edward III ordered his Lord Chancellor to sit on a wool bale to symbolise how central the wool trade was to England's medieval economy.

In 1938 the Lord Chancellor's wool-trade seat in the Lords was found stuffed with what?

It was remade with wool from Britain and 15 Commonwealth countries, supplied by the International Wool Secretariat as a symbol of trade routes.

Smuggling wool out of England, once punishable by cutting off a hand, was known by what name?

Various British laws also required the use of wool even in burials, to prop up the domestic trade.

Which wool guild oversaw the Florentine textile industry behind Medici banking wealth?

The guild sent imported English wool to the San Martino convent for processing while Spanish merino went to the Garbo workshops.

Pliny the Elder wrote that the finest wool of the Roman world came from which city?

Selective breeding there produced sheep with superior fleeces, though Pliny noted they needed special care.

The oldest known European wool textile, from around 1500 BC, was preserved in a bog in which country?

Before shears were invented, probably in the Iron Age, wool was plucked out by hand or with bronze combs.

Which English city became the heart of industrialised woollens, fed by Australian wool by 1845?

Australia's colonial economy came to depend on sheep, and its wool trade overtook Germany's by that year.

Superwash, or machine-washable, wool technology first appeared in which decade?

It works either by stripping the scales from the fibre in an acid bath or by coating the fibre with a polymer so the scales cannot lock together and shrink.

A 2007 wool suit developed with Australian merino and sold in Japan could be cleaned in what unusual way?

It dried ready to wear within hours with no ironing, extending shower-cleaning to woven suits, trousers and skirts.

Blending wool with which synthetic fibre made body armour lighter, cheaper and better wet?

Kevlar alone loses about a fifth of its effectiveness when wet; wool added friction so 28 to 30 layers matched 36 layers of pure Kevlar.

The UN proclaimed which year the International Year of Natural Fibres to raise wool's profile?

The General Assembly made the proclamation in December 2006, covering wool alongside cotton, silk, jute and other natural fibres.

The finest wool bale ever auctioned, in June 2008, measured how many microns?

Produced by the Hillcreston Pinehill Partnership, it fetched AU$2,690 per kilo and was exported to India.

The Merino breed originated in which region, where exporting the sheep was for centuries a crime?

Spain guarded its monopoly so fiercely that would-be exporters risked capital punishment; the first big consignments only left in the 18th century.

Merinos sent to France in the 18th century developed into which breed, named after a royal farm?

Louis XVI received 366 sheep in 1786, and a Rambouillet ram named Emperor later shaped the Australian Merino after his 1860 import.

Which figure introduced Merinos to Australia in 1788, bringing them from the Cape?

Two years earlier the King of Spain had gifted Escurial Merinos to the Dutch government, and they thrived at the Cape Colony.

Sir Joseph Banks bought 40 Negretti Merinos in 1792 to found George III's royal flock where?

Banks had already procured two rams and four ewes via Portugal in 1787, quietly working around the Spanish export ban.

The word 'cashmere' is an anglicisation of the name of which region?

The Kashmir shawl reached Europe in the 19th century, and the fibre took the shawl's name with it.

Which country is the world's largest producer of raw cashmere?

Its output was estimated at 19,200 metric tons of hair a year in 2016, more than double second-placed Mongolia.

Cashmere comes from the fine winter undercoat of a goat; what is the coarse outer coat called?

The soft down is kept for textiles while the guard hair goes into brushes and other non-apparel uses.

Mohair is made from the hair of which animal?

Angora rabbits produce angora wool, a different fibre; the confusing shared name comes from Ankara in Turkey.

Which country supplied about 56% of the world's mohair in 2024?

Mohair was produced exclusively in Turkey until the mid-19th century, and raw fibre first reached England around 1820.

The word 'mohair' entered English from which language, where it meant a type of haircloth?

The original word mukhayyar literally meant 'choice', and it was adopted into English some time before 1570.

Angora fibre is much warmer and lighter than sheep's wool because of what feature?

Commercial yarns usually use only 30 to 50 per cent angora, enough for a soft halo without excessive felting.

Which country has more than 50 million Angora rabbits and produces most of the world's angora fibre?

They grow 2,500 to 3,000 tonnes a year, and most Angora rabbits moult on a natural cycle roughly every four months.

The vicuña, source of one of the world's priciest fibres, is the national animal of which country?

Under the Inca only royalty could wear vicuña, and the wild animals can only be caught and shorn every three years.

Qiviut, a fibre warmer than sheep's wool and softer than cashmere, is the underwool of which animal?

The animals are not sheared; the wool is plucked during the spring moult or gathered from objects they have brushed against.

Which rarer type of alpaca grows silky fibre that hangs in dreadlock-like locks?

The common Huacaya looks fluffy like a sheep and its crimped fibre suits knitting yarn, while crimp-free Suri is better for woven goods.

Lanolin, the wax secreted by sheep, takes its name from Latin words meaning what?

Beyond cosmetics it goes into rust-proof coatings, moustache wax and the shaving cream ballplayers use to break in gloves.

Felt hats dated to about 1800 BCE, some of the oldest firm evidence of felting, were found where?

Excavations at Çatal Hüyük hint at felting even earlier, around 6000 BCE, and Siberian tombs show felt clothing, jewellery and horse blankets.

Wool felts because barbs on the fibres hook together; which of these accentuates wet felting?

Wet felting needs water and an alkaline lubricant, then agitation; some natural felting even happens on the sheep's own back.

Tweed got its name when a merchant misread 'tweel', Scots for twill, as a reference to what?

He assumed it was a trade name from the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders textile country, and the goods were advertised as Tweed ever after.

Harris Tweed's protected status is enshrined in an Act of Parliament passed in which year?

The Orb trade mark itself dates from 1909 and was granted to all the Outer Hebrides islands, to the annoyance of Harris merchants.

Which lichen, known as crottle, gave traditional Harris Tweed its red and orange flecks?

Two species, Parmelia saxatilis and Parmelia omphalodes, were used as natural dyes before the Countess of Dunmore made the cloth fashionable.

The Woolmark logo's 1964 competition winner is now thought to be a pseudonym of whom?

The winner was named as Milanese artist Francesco Saroglia; the logo guaranteed products were pure new wool, unblended with synthetics.

Fair Isle knitting became fashionable after which royal wore its jumpers in public in 1921?

The future Edward VIII helped popularise a Shetland style that uses only two colours per row and a palette of about five colours.

Which Irish folk group adopted Aran jumpers as their trademark stage outfit in the late 1950s?

Their New York fame fuelled US demand for Arans, and the tale that each family's pattern identified drowned fishermen is a modern myth.

The fleece of Shrek, the New Zealand sheep who dodged shearing for six years, was enough for how many men's suits?

The 27 kg fleece was about six times an average Merino clip; he was later shorn again on an iceberg off Dunedin.

Chris, the Australian ram shorn in 2015, set a Guinness record with a fleece of roughly what weight?

Champion shearer Ian Elkins needed about 42 minutes on the sedated ram, and the 42 cm long fleece was too long to have any commercial value.

The Golden Shears, the world's largest sheep-shearing and wool-handling contest, is held where?

It takes place in the Wairarapa district; New Zealand shearer David Fagan has been world champion a record five times.

Frederick York Wolseley's shearing machines were built in which English city from 1888?

Wolseley was an Australian sheepgrower; by 1915 most large Australian shearing sheds ran machines driven by steam or combustion engines.

In Greek myth, the Golden Fleece came from a winged ram that carried Phrixus to which kingdom?

Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the fleece to King Aeëtes, whose daughter Medea later helped Jason steal it.

In wet felting, water is combined with which everyday lubricant before the wool is agitated?

An alkali such as soap helps the microscopic barbs on the fibres hook together, and a sudden change of temperature speeds the process along.

Wool grows from which structures that extend from the epidermis down into the dermis?

Primary follicles can produce coarse kemp and medullated fibres as well as true wool, while secondary follicles produce only true wool.

Wool carpets are used in trains and aircraft because in a fire wool does what instead of melting?

It also ignites at a higher temperature than cotton and many synthetics, which is why firefighters' and soldiers' garments are often wool.

There are roughly how many domestic sheep in the world?

Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between about 11,000 and 9000 BC, making them one of the earliest farm animals.

What is the mean fibre diameter limit for wool labelled Super 100?

Each increase of ten in the S number lowers the limit by 0.5 micrometre, so Super 120 means 17.75 micrometres or finer.

Before shears were invented, probably in the Iron Age, how was wool removed from sheep?

Woolly sheep had reached Europe from the Near East in the early 4th millennium BC.

Which two Flemish textile cities received baled English wool from North Sea ports in the Middle Ages?

There the raw wool was dyed and worked into cloth, while the Champagne fairs revolved around small centres like Provins.

In 1699 the English Crown forbade its American colonies from trading wool with anyone except whom?

After the 1660 Restoration, fine English woollens competed with silks internationally, helped by the Navigation Acts.

Roughly how many crimps per centimetre can a fine Merino wool fibre have?

Coarser wool like karakul may have less than one crimp per centimetre; crimp traps air, which is why wool fabric retains heat.

Which Tlingit people of North America wove blankets from mountain-goat wool?

Navajo weavers, by contrast, combined sheep wool with an older cotton tradition.

Which three countries were the largest producers of greasy sheep wool in 2024?

About 1.98 million tonnes were produced worldwide, with Australia supplying a larger share of the fine apparel and Merino wool.