A Body Without A Skeleton

A Body Without A Skeleton: Stripping Wool Bare by Helen Hickman and Jenny Walker

The natural world is a of balance between form and function, of beauty and utility. In this blog I want to share with you not only my passion for natural, pure wool, but offer you my thoughts about super-wash wool and the space it takes up in our environment, as well as in our homes.

As I pass my hands through the fleeces that come my way, they tell me so much. The fleece’s raw nature tells of stories the sheep have gone through, braving all weathers and terrain as they roam around the local Welsh hills where I live. I connect with the fibres; soft crimps at the base, and rugged tips. Lanolin comes off onto my fingertips, giving me a gift of its natural barrier against harsh elements, including its water resistant power. This beautiful product, the shorn fleece, that the sheep no longer needs, is what I fell in love with, for all the properties that it gives us, and it’s what I want to share with you.     

No sheep is the same as its flock members, just as we are independent in ourselves, which means that wool is, by default, never standard. However, some breeds give us a softer fleece than others. Blue Faced Leicester, for instance, has a very low micron count, which means that the wool fibre doesn’t have as much rigour as compared to (for example), the Herdwick.

Part of wool’s makeup is the cuticle that we can feel on each fibre. Much like our fingernail cuticles, it protects the sheep from the elements. When it rains or snows, the cuticles and lanolin combine to provide a barrier against water. They also help with temperature regulation, so the sheep can stay warm when they are on the mountains in the snow during the winter, whilst they are cool in the summer (especially after their spring sheer). The overlapping micro-scales that the cuticles produce allow for fibre alignment, so that each can run over the sheep’s body without producing dreadlocks. The sheep is completely protected through the fleece that it grows, and over the centuries shepherds have learned how to breed their flocks to enhance the natural qualities of the fleece. Natural water repellent properties, temperature regulating fibres, how the wool curves over the shape of the sheep’s body, protection against the sun, rain and storm…fleece from sheep offers us the perfect bi-product to create long lasting clothing once it’s spun, and often, dyed. 

So why do we have super-wash yarn in the first place if pure wool offers us so much?

The only reason why super-wash yarn was invented by the corporate fashion industry was so that we could put our clothes into the washing machine. It wasn’t until much later when we started to see it in the hand dyeing and making industry.
When yarn is ‘super-washed’, whether by the older method of using chlorine and resin based methods, or the newer ozone processes, we lose the cuticle of the yarn. We take away the gifted elements from wool that offer us all the protection we could ask for. It’s as if we are left with a body without its skeleton; the rigour has been blasted out of it and the form that we seek is lost. 

It is all so easy to see how the structure of the wool is lost once you have knitted with both superwash and non-superwash yarn and have, indeed, washed it at home. When you care for a raw wool that has the cuticle in place, after you’ve washed your sweater or socks, you can reshape them as the wool has a bounce and a tenacity that you can work with. When the cuticle has been taken away, the personality of the yarn has gone, leaving us with a garment that cannot be coaxed or shaped. 

The unique essence of the wool has been stripped away for the simple fact that we want to pop our hand-knits in a washing machine as hand-washing seems too much of a fuss. As I sit and knit evening after evening with the rhythm of my needles, the idea of putting my project in for a spin cycle (gentle or otherwise), is lost on me. The care I, and all knitters, put into our projects seems to be broken by the lack of care after our final cast-off stitch; as if the wearing and looking after of our clothes isn’t also part of the knitting. 

The fleece that I dye with comes from sheep that are near and dear to me. The Jacob fleece that I dyed with this summer came from a flock of ‘pets’ just two miles away from my dye garden. The natural environment that we inhabit with our livestock is one that reminds me that we are fleeting here on earth, and that we should leave very little, if anything, behind to harm our surroundings. Which is why, maybe, I cannot justify the procedures of super-washing. 

How is natural wool yarn ‘super washed’?

The process of taking the cuticle away from the fleece uses chemicals that have to be neutralised by more chemicals so the water run-off from the factories that produce it are safe in the river systems, but only in countries with environmental controls, and a lot of places that produce super-wash yarn don’t have those stringent laws. The workers are exposed to chemicals that their bodies are not supposed to be in contact with. The resins that are used may break down, but they are still a form of added coating that is not needed and have had to be formulated in yet another lab and factory, with exactly the same problems; often harmful working conditions and toxic runoff. The chemical cycle is never ending, from start to finish. And let’s remind ourselves, that is all so we can put the sweater in a washing machine. 

The idea that hand-washing is arduous is something I would like to come to in a later blog about how to care for our clothes, as well as ourselves. But the truth is that wool doesn’t need to be washed that much. Sweaters can be hung and aired when needed, and spot cleaned when life splatters us. A full baptism of natural soap is done rarely, and can be a wonderful time of self-care and slowing down. We do not need to wash our knits as much as we think as they are outer-garments, and rarely touch our skin in ways that would make the wool dirty.

Throughout history outer-garments have been worn over layers of linen, cotton. These are the base-layers that are regularly cleaned as they sit close to our skin. And yet, like wool, they keep us warm and cool when needed, and work with the natural fabrics that sit in layers against our skin to keep us insulated and regulated. 

Superwash wool is so much more than a conversation about microplastics, and I don’t believe that the argument that it allows wool to be broken down three weeks quicker is a justification in the methods. 

Choosing materials that we work with, create with, imagine with, is also about how we choose to tread lightly on our precious earth, and live a whole-earth practice. 

I love sharing my passion with you, and I look forward to writing to you more in the near future about how we can embrace practices within our fibre crafts that flow into our homes, and out into our communities. 

Until next time, walk softly. 

Helen xx