Sheep to Shelf

Yarn doesn’t magically appear on the shelf of a craft store. There are people and processes that go into creating it.

Let’s take a look at how a fluffy sheep can turn into a skein of yarn found in a store.

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2 Clean the fibers card the fibers to get all the natural debris out of the wool. This forces the fibers to face the same

direction, much like brushing hair in the morn-ing.

3 After the yarn is all facing the same direc-tion, it is spun into a very loose version of yarn. This is wound tighter and tighter

until it is a very small strand.

4 After it is strung out, the yarn is wind-ed together with other strands of yarn. This process continues until the yarn

is the proper weight and thickness, as needed by the type of yarn that is made.

5 Innitally the yarn doesn’t have any twist to it, but simply adding weight to wet yarn and letting it dry adds

the twist that everyone who works with yarn knows and loves.

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1 Acquire a sheep and sheer it. This process is usually done in late spring, before lambs are born. This

insures that mother sheep will take care of their young and keep them out of the cold.

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6 The yarn is died and exported to the many places it is sold. This happens to be Wall-Mart’s selection of choice yarns.

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Big Bag of Yarn is a proud supporter of yarn facto-ries everywhere. Go out there and by yarn where ever it may be sold. It helps the global economy, since most yarn is spun outside of the US of A.