Evolution of the Use of Wool Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Evolution of the Use of Wool - Term Paper Example Since then, man has made efforts to improve and maximize on it by selective breeding of excess wool producing sheep and also incorporating other qualities into the wool fabric, including mothproofing, stain-proofing, durable creasing and pleating, shrink resistance and shower-proofing (Guthrie 145). Science and technology came in to improve the quality of wool and maximize the products keeping it in the fabrics forefront making it suitable for the modern requirements without affecting its virtues. After man started domesticating sheep, he used to milk it, and whenever it would shed its fleece, it would be collected, spun, and used to weave clothes. It then dawned on a man that killing sheep for meat only was a waste of resources, material, and food. He then resorted to becoming a shepherd and later on came up with a method of producing clothes from the fleece. He used to spin the wool to produce a thread by taking it in one hand and drawing it out twisting it using the fingers of the other hand. This then resulted in a thick yarn that was uneven. Later on, man developed a crude spindle, where he fitted a clay ring or a stone to a short wooden stick end. The ring made it possible to wound the drawn-out yarn on the spindle. This spinning method was later used for thousands of years. The threads were woven to produce clothes, and the first products were made up of a beam from which warps were hung before being weighted by the stones at the lower end. The yarn was then threaded across the warp in such an act of over and under. This system was also used for thousands of years just like spinning (Gleason 185). After the two implements for spinning and weaving spun wool, the first improvement to be done was on the loom. Instead of the vertical suspension of the warp threads from the beam, they were horizontally laid across the frame. Sticks were then tied to with  alternate warp threads, and they would be lowered and raised in turn.