Gallery 3 of 16 · Fleece and flock

Sheep and wool

From a shed undercoat to the fleeces of the Merino and the Navajo-Churro, and shearing day.

Breeds and fibers

From hair to fleece

biology

Breeding turned the shed undercoat into a fleece that keeps growing and must be shorn. Fleeces differ by fiber thickness (micron), length (staple) and crimp: fine wools like Merino are soft enough for baby clothes, long wools like Leicester and Lincoln are lustrous and strong, and hair sheep such as the Katahdin and St. Croix need no shearing at all.

Choosing yarn starts with knowing which sheep it came from.

Sources: The Livestock Conservancy, sheep breed profiles; Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook (Storey, 2011)

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

1273 to 1800s

The Merino and the Mesta

historyeconomicstrade & commercialization

Medieval Castile built its wealth on fine-wooled Merino sheep, driven between summer and winter pastures by the Mesta, a herders' guild chartered by Alfonso X in 1273. Spain forbade the export of Merinos for centuries; when the ban broke in the 1700s, the breed reached Saxony, Australia (from 1797) and, in a buying craze of 1810 to 1811, Vermont.

One breed, three continents of wool fortunes.

Sources: Julius Klein, The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History (Harvard, 1920)

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

1300s to now

Wool and the English crown

historyeconomicstrade & commercialization

In medieval England wool was the leading export and taxed to pay for wars. The Lord Speaker of the House of Lords still sits on the Woolsack, a cushion stuffed with wool, a custom dating from the 1300s to remind the realm where its wealth came from.

A symbol you can show students on any picture of Parliament.

Sources: UK Parliament, "The Woolsack"

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

1598 to now

The Navajo-Churro: a Spanish sheep in Navajo hands

historybiology

Spanish colonists brought the hardy churra sheep to New Mexico in 1598. The Diné (Navajo) took up the breed and its long, low-grease wool for their weaving. In 1863 to 1864 the U.S. Army slaughtered Navajo flocks during the Long Walk, and in the 1930s federal stock reduction cut them again; the breed was rescued from near loss in the 1970s.

A sheep whose story is also a story of conquest and survival.

Sources: Navajo Sheep Project and the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association; The Livestock Conservancy, Navajo-Churro profile

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

Then and now

Shearing day

economicshistory

Sheep are shorn once a year, usually in spring. Hand blades gave way to machine shears in the late 1800s; a skilled shearer today removes a fleece in a few minutes in one piece. The fleece is then skirted (dirty edges removed), scoured (washed), carded or combed, and spun.

The steps from sheep to skein that every yarn label hides.

Sources: American Sheep Industry Association, wool production

Illustration: Urbanicity house studio (SI-generated)

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