Wool you or wool you not?

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame,
One for Uno's crafting
which is pretty lame.

Uno seeks a source of itchy, scratchy wool.
How much or how little, I'm thinking one bag full.
Loose and stinky, but with no burrs or bugs.
The kind for hooking things with, warm and hairy rugs.

I am embarking on another craft idea. IT may not go as planned in which I case I will not need wool. But if it goes well I might need some more loose wool. Does anyone have some? From some loose sheep? By this I don't mean morally challenged sheep, I mean, you know, sheep that are on the lam. Ba ha ha, I kill me!

No poem from Sue. To early and brain not working.

I do have some Shetland sheep I will have to shear this spring though. Talk to me in May!

Could probably put a bag on the bus for you mid month. Do you care about breed or colour? I have a nice grey-black dorset cross for example.

Good to know some wool is out there.

I have some wool questions. I am hooking a saddle pad. The wool I am using has not been spun into yarn, but some process must have been done to it because it's like toilet paper. A long, flat width of it. Sorry, hard to describe. I am cutting chunks off this 'roll' about 4 inches long, then separating it into thin wisps. I loosely roll the wisps, so they look like hand rolled cigarettes, then I hook them through a piece of burlap. This thing is getting HUGE! Very, very puffy. I am assuming that with use the wool will pack down and get flatter. Mat itself into a more felted unit. If it doesn't, it will like be putting a saddle on a mattress.

Question one: will it pack to a thinner layer over time?

Question two: what process has happened to this wool to get it fairly clean, mostly unscented, and shaped into this long, continuous ribbon of loose wool?

All of the Horsey Daughter's saddle pads get an odour that is quite horrible. The thin English pads we wash in an industrial washer at the laundrymat. BUt her heavy, fake felt Western pads are pretty much not washable. They are rank! I can assume that this wool pad will also develop a stank. But if one is foolish enough to wet it for washing, I can assume it will weigh over 50 pounds wet! Plus I do not want to add soap since I think you would never get it rinsed out. What can one wash wool with that will get rid of stink, but is not soap? Vinegar? Washing soda or baking soda? QUestion three: How best to care for this object to keep it from attracting predators to its bad smell.

I have been working on this project for two days now and think it might be a big mistake and a waste of wool. I have made the loops quite close together, within a 1/4 inch of each other, the result was a massive, dense chunk of wool. I tried to pull out random chunks. Good luck. Some come out, some don't. As I work my way to the edges, I am spacing the loops further apart, to avoid ridiculous bulk. It is using up a ton of wool! Has anyone done anything like this? I did try to felt raw wool into a pad, but that was a disaster. I am of the impression that a nice wool pad is kindest to a horse's back. So much nicer then those nasty acrylic things.

Will keep note of available wool as I proceed. Is it safe to assume that the wool from Heda and Sue has NOT been processed other than to be mowed off the sheep? I am not familiar with the different levels of wool processing.

Yup, my wool has not be processed, just mowed off sheep in springtime and folded and put into bag. Fleece.

Other than that - I'd try hand washing the western pads in water as you would a fragile sweater - maybe very weak soap rinsed often. It will at least get rid of most of the salt, much of the caked dirt.

Maybe go to one of the woolen mill sites and see if they have photos of what the wool products are. That might help. Is it like felt?

Check out these products - maybe you have batting?

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Ah! Thanks Heda. I think what I have is roving. IT is not felted at all, easily pulls apart, but definitely has some organized shape to it. Maybe I will be biting off more than I can chew to go for pure, raw wool. The wool I have doesn't even smell like lanolin anymore, so it must have received some sort of processing. Thanks for the link.

Should I ever post that I am undertaking the construction of another wool saddle pad, would someone please drive to my house and kick me? Much appreciated. (why do I get these boneheaded ideas, anyway? )

Saddle blanket update: dumb idea. This is a very big project and taking much longer than my imagined afternoon of hooking. (that sounded bad! )

I am almost out of wool. Astonished at how much wool this has used up. Started with a huge garbage bag stuffed to the gunnels. I will likey have enough to get the project done, but just.

Met a lady yesterday who has wool and wool products and sells roving for $13 a pound. PErhaps I am a cheap idiot, but I thought that was VERY EXPENSIVE! She says a garbage bag of roving runs between $130 and $150! In that case it has cost me $130 to make a saddle blanket? Sheesh.

Can anyone tell me if this is the normal going rate for wool or if this is on the high side? I am astonished!

uno wrote:Good to know some wool is out there.

I have some wool questions. I am hooking a saddle pad. The wool I am using has not been spun into yarn, but some process must have been done to it because it's like toilet paper. A long, flat width of it. Sorry, hard to describe. I am cutting chunks off this 'roll' about 4 inches long, then separating it into thin wisps. I loosely roll the wisps, so they look like hand rolled cigarettes, then I hook them through a piece of burlap. This thing is getting HUGE! Very, very puffy. I am assuming that with use the wool will pack down and get flatter. Mat itself into a more felted unit. If it doesn't, it will like be putting a saddle on a mattress.

Question one: will it pack to a thinner layer over time?

Question two: what process has happened to this wool to get it fairly clean, mostly unscented, and shaped into this long, continuous ribbon of loose wool?

All of the Horsey Daughter's saddle pads get an odour that is quite horrible. The thin English pads we wash in an industrial washer at the laundrymat. BUt her heavy, fake felt Western pads are pretty much not washable. They are rank! I can assume that this wool pad will also develop a stank. But if one is foolish enough to wet it for washing, I can assume it will weigh over 50 pounds wet! Plus I do not want to add soap since I think you would never get it rinsed out. What can one wash wool with that will get rid of stink, but is not soap? Vinegar? Washing soda or baking soda? QUestion three: How best to care for this object to keep it from attracting predators to its bad smell.

I have been working on this project for two days now and think it might be a big mistake and a waste of wool. I have made the loops quite close together, within a 1/4 inch of each other, the result was a massive, dense chunk of wool. I tried to pull out random chunks. Good luck. Some come out, some don't. As I work my way to the edges, I am spacing the loops further apart, to avoid ridiculous bulk. It is using up a ton of wool! Has anyone done anything like this? I did try to felt raw wool into a pad, but that was a disaster. I am of the impression that a nice wool pad is kindest to a horse's back. So much nicer then those nasty acrylic things.

Will keep note of available wool as I proceed. Is it safe to assume that the wool from Heda and Sue has NOT been processed other than to be mowed off the sheep? I am not familiar with the different levels of wool processing.

We always used to take our saddle pads to the car wash. Did a heavey duty pressure was (without soap). If you use soap it will take a lot longer because you have to rinse long enough to be sure all soap is gone. Then hang on the clothes line to dry (can take up to 4 days depending on the pad

Car wash! Brilliant!

I think this pad, wet, will weigh over 50 pounds! There must be 3 sheep (sheeps?) worth of wool in there!

I have seen saddle pads made of sheeps wool and they are HUGE and thick and I dont know how they get their saddle on top of all that.
ANd they are expensive, so I think you are probably right in there with the price Uno.
My mistrust of them is mainly because of the time it would take to wash and clean them, why I love the wool bed blankets, you can slosh them around in an outdoor tub and hang them to dry.
Hard this time of year of course!

Oh Miry, this object I am making is ridiculously fat and puffy. I'm pretty sure it will pack down, mold itself to the horse's back. But from what I've read, the first few rides need to be short, as this pad, until flattened out, rolls the saddle all over the place. It requires a 'breaking in' period.

I have to say, with the days and days and DAYS of work I've put in (and still not done!) I would NOT sell one for $150. $150 is what it would cost me to purchase the wool. If I were to sell one, $400 would be the start price. That prices my labour at cents per hour. Cents. This is crazy, stupid labour intensive! ANd messy as hell! My kitchen is an inch thick with wool lint. ANd itchy. I am wildly allergic to wool and have a rash on my hands and wrists.

Having watched a few youtube videos on the picking, washing, drying and carding of wool, it's easy to see where a price of $13 a pound for processed wool comes from! The labour involved is off the scale! Have to wonder why anyone fiddles around with a fibre that requires so much labour from raw state to workable state.

Miry, I tell Horse Daughter that if I catch her tossing this pad onto a bale of hay...her life is over! I think care will have to be taken in handling simply because the wool will pick up every itchy and scratchy thing it encounters. But if one is a little careful where they toss the pad...it should last a lifetime. I hope.

Uno, would you mind sharing a photo of what you are doing?

You also have to be careful with the wool blankets on horses that you don't accidentally scald your horse if you are working them hard. We had a couple made for us when we were growing up and we scalded our horses backs doing our cattle round up one time. After that the wool blankets were used for dog beds. It took quite a while to heal their backs the poor things!

Coopslave, keep your eyes peeled for pics, but be warned, it is not very flashy looking.

Smokyriver, I have never heard of a scalded back! From my limited understanding, a horse has a HUGE body surface with which to release heat and cool itself. A wool pad covering just a small percentage of that body surface should not overheat a horse. ALso being a natural fibre, heat should move through it more easily than a synthetic fibre.

But I admit to thinking along the lines of worrying about it being too hot. I have to think though that wool heat is kinder to a horse's back than acrylic, recycled, post consumer fibre that some saddle pads are made out of. The saving grace with Horse Daughter is that her horses are pleasure horses and never see the work level that a working ranch horse does. As demands of a horse life goes, they're pretty limp wristed.

I have a feeling that this project will end up tossed in the back of the tackshed. Not sure why I do this stuff.

For you, Coopslave.

This shows the piece of burlap I am using. IT has a design meant for hooking a rug. Rihgt now I think the pad resembles Australia. I am about 50% done.
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This shows the fuzzy side.

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This shows the looped side.

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The raw material start as a coil of wool. Cut into small chunks. Pieces of fluff pulled off then rolled on my knee into loose, wool 'ciagarettes'. Hooked through the burlap with hooking thingy.

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Uno looks like it is going to be very nice, lucky horsey daughter to have you for a Mom

We had one made for my husband with our brand in the corner. He put it in the barn on top of his saddle and didn't ride for a month or so, moths had laid eggs in it and damaged about 3 inches of area that we had to have repaired. He loves his saddle pads. Now we have three and he has a couple of moth balls in the tack room near the saddles.

Moths. Hadn't though of that. I bet a No Pest strip in the tack shed would keep moths out without that ghastly smell of mothballs.

After hearing about horse back scald and being worried, I computered a few different sites about back scald and only one person reports scald with a wool pad. Many, many people report scald with neoprene pads and other materials. BUt wool seems to be the very, absolute best for a horse's back. There are many pads out there that appear to be wool, but are not. Just because something looks like wool does not make it wool. I would feel horrible if I made something that harmed the horse!

Once before I made an all wool saddle pad, attempted to felt it, not hook it. Felting is a process that I had NO experience with and a saddle pad was a pretty ambitious project for a beginner. It was a disaster. It looked so awful Horsey Daughter refused to use it and flung it over a stall wall. Squirrels tore it to shreds to line their nests. It didn't live long enough for moths to get it, although wasps did build a nest in it.

Thanks for posting the photos Uno, it is looking really good. I am looking forward to seeing the finished product. I think I had a pad very similar to that when I was a young person, MANY years ago.

I think the only time you have to worry about wool scalding a back is when the saddle stays on for very long hours coupled with hard work. If we are doing a really big day we remove saddles if we take a break, or at least lift the backs of the saddle to allow some air circulation a time or two through the day.