For classic clothes try shaving sheep
From sheep to sweater, the workmanship of wool craftsmen is being celebrated at several pioneer museums this weekend and next. A visit tomorrow to Century Village’s Pioneer Sheep and Wool Craft Day will show how important sheep were to early settlers. Almost every pioneer family had its own flock, which provided necessities from trousers to blankets – and even the occasional Christmas tree ornament.
At the village, sheep will be shorn of their shaggy winter fleece with simple shears, less elaborate than a pair of ordinary scissors. Fashioned from one piece of metal that is folded like a hairpin, the shears are deftly manipulated on a reluctant animal until it is shaved of up to 15 pounds of fleece.
After the shearing, the settler’s wife and children sorted the wool, picking out twigs and burrs, then washed it in rainwater. Carding was the ideal job for youngsters and children can try this weekend when historical interpreters will show them how to use the pioneer’s wire brushes to remove tangles in the wool and prepare it for spinning.
To turn the fluffy mass into workable yarn, settlers used a number of spinning devices, from simple drop spindles to spinning wheels. Visitors are invited to try their hand at a drop spindle, which looks like a spinning top as it dangles and twirls at the end of a winding thread of wool. A demonstration makes it look easy, but a visitor only needs to try it to find out that skill is required to keep the thread from breaking and to produce an evenly spun yarn.
At the 1840s Fitzpatrick house in the village, visitors can see wool being spun on a flax wheel. The Irish settlers who lived in this house would probably have used this small wheel to produce hard yarns to be woven into trousers. Bigger wheels produced soft yarns to be knitted into sweaters and crocheted into shawls.
Dye kettles bubbling with strange concoctions show how imaginative pioneer women were in their use of plant roots and leaves to color their clothes. While tending the cauldrons that simmer over an outdoor fire, village guides explain recipes for dyes that can be made from commonly found plants. Onion skins produce a rich orange. Shades of yellow to green come from dandelions and goldenrod, while wild grapes produce purple and grey. Even the kettles in which the wool is simmered play a role in the coloring, since the iron and brass act on the dyes to fix the colors and help them penetrate the wool.