Wool

In the heat of the summer a cutting is highly appreciated by the sheeps.

The Asian fat-tail sheep produces wool that is suitable for carpets, since it contains a mixture of short and long fibres.

The quality of this wool changes with the animals age, depending on the the area the wool grown on the body, the life conditions of the animal and not forgetting the time of shearing wool.

The finest wool is gathered from the lambs that are sheared in the autumn. The wool that grows around the neck is known as the corkwool and is used in very fine and special carpets. It is of great importance to know that sheep which lives on high levels have a higher amount of woolfat thereby giving it a shinier and more glossy wool.

In Iran the nomads keep giant flocks of sheep and the country is nearly self-sufficient on wool. Other countries like Pakistan for example import a lot of wool from Australia and New Zeeland.

There is no doubt that the most important material in the carpet making process is sheep wool. After shearing the wool, it is then classified in different qualities, cleaned and washed. Following all this carding takes place to sort out the the wool and to separate the fibres. The carding can be done mechanically, but in villages and in nomadic camps it is still done by hand.

A woman on the countryside in Iran, spinning wool to yarn.

The spinning is done in different ways depending on the use of it; warp, weft or pile.

In Iran most of the spinning is still done by hand, often on a spinning wheel, but the nomadic women still use a traditional spindle to spin the yarn.

In countries such as China and Pakistan, all carpets are made of machinespun yarn.

We were all young once...
The wool is still sheared by hand even today.
The natural colour of the sheep is used as a base for colouring. Here they use - a brown and a white sheep.

Share this article:

For it's correct content this site was awarded: