Boiled wool

[timber_cruiser]

I found a pair of boiled wool mittens that have become a winter favorite.

IMG_2060[14368].jpg

I came across this article about New England fisherman who wore these.

https://newengland.com/today/living/...-wool-mittens/


"Time was that when a man went out in his boat in winter, he took his wool mittens off a nail on board, dipped them in the warm water from the engine, wrung them out, and put them on wet."

They were tough souls.

Anyone else wear boiled wool clothing?

[LeeG]

I had a nice wool cycling jersey that went through the washer and dryer and came out a perfect pullover coat for my daughter when she was 2 yrs old.

[Breakaway]

My father and grandfather were both longshoremen. They spoke of " old timers" wearing wool gloves dipped in seawater. Neither dad or papa did it themselves.

"Old timers" would have meant people born around 1900 for my father and around 1870 or 1880 for my grandfather.

Kevin

[L.W. Baxter]

there was a time when i could work bare-handed in freezing rain for hours at a time.

i recall a couple seasons i used fingerless wool gloves, but they would get destroyed in just a few days of use. so i went back to barehanding.

now, i get a chill when i get up to pee at night and the house is down to 60f. makes me feel older than i am.

[Nicholas Carey]

You make "boiled wool" by knitting a garment roughly twice the desired sized, of wool yarn, usually spun "in the grease", meaning it hasn't been washed to remove the lanolin — how much oversize is dependent on the yarn, and how tightly the garment was knitted, etc.

A wool fiber looks like this under an electron microscope.



The garment then gets washed in hot water and and mechanically agitated. Once the wool absorbs the hot water, the scales in the above photomicrograph open up. The mechanical agitation causes the fibers to interlock because of the open scales, and felt. And the hot water causes the wool to shrink, making a tight, windproof and nearly waterproof garment.

You can still by real boiled wool from Dachstein in Austria:

https://www.sweaterchalet.com/dachst...s-caps-gloves/

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I bought #2 son a French guernsey from the admirable Arthur Beale, on line. It’s one size too big and that pattern is no longer made so I have undertaken to shrink it one size…

[elf]

I went on a rafting trip down a small "river" in the White Mountains in early May with a group of kids from Wellesley College years ago. At the time I was a spinner, knitter, weaver, etc. so I grabbed all the pairs of knit wool mittens I had around the studio and threw them in the car.

Of course, everyone got wet hands, and soon their plastic gloves were useless. So I handed out the wool mittens which performed exactly as they were supposed to do.

Wet wool conserves body heat, just like dry wool. (Gloves are a terrible idea anyway, because they isolate the fingers so they can't keep each other warm.)

I wear silk glove liners now, under wool half-finger gloves with the fold back mitten, when I go shooting in the winter. The silk is better than any synthetics for staying warm, but just barely holds its own against the cold, and is easily cut through by fingernails. If you've ever worn silk stockings, you know about that problem.

[elf]

I bought #2 son a French guernsey from the admirable Arthur Beale, on line. It’s one size too big and that pattern is no longer made so I have undertaken to shrink it one size…

Surprized it isn't pre-shrunk. Most traditional irish knit sweaters are firmed up in hot water with light agitation.

I've used the washing machine to full knitted garments. Tried it with alpaca once and it didn't work. The scales on alpaca are too long and smooth.

[Jim Bow]

Is boiled wool also known as felt?

[Todd Bradshaw]

We used to sell Dachstein Mitts in our stores back in the '70s and '80s. We even had a sample on hand of one before it was boiled and it looked like some sort of tennis racket cover at that size.

I still have a pair which live inside waxed cowhide shells for snowshoeing and XC skiing. They used to make a sweater, too. The last one I saw was a pullover in red ragg wool with kind of a V-neck and shawl collar. It wasn't quite as thick and dense as the mittens but wasn't too far off.

Dachsteins.jpg

You can't see i in this picture, but in real life they tend to have kind of a bluish cast to the wool.

[timber_cruiser]

You can still by real boiled wool from Dachstein in Austria:

https://www.sweaterchalet.com/dachst...s-caps-gloves/

Nicholas, that is where I bought these mitts. I was looking at the sweaters but they are cost a bit more than I want to spend right now.

[timber_cruiser]

I still have a pair which live inside waxed cowhide shells for snowshoeing and XC skiing.

Dachsteins.jpg

Todd, I have a pair of leather chopper mitts I use as a cover when it gets really cold. The leather mitts help shed some water as well.

[Dave Hadfield]

There's a great description of that in Tim Severin's book "The Brendan Voyage", from observing his Faroe Island crewman.

The point of dipping it in water is that it cuts the wind better, and it's less slippery on a dry wooden shaft like a tiller. And being wool, it still works thermally, reasonably well.

But personally, on my winter snowshoe treks in Northern Ontario, I opt for high-quality leather work gloves, unlined, bought too large, used with thin wool liners.

I also bring a set of extreme-cold overmitts (surplus US Army Arctic shooting gauntlets), but I have rarely pulled them out of the pack.

Mitts are too clumsy for most camp work. If it's too cold for the gloves in the picture, it's generally too cold for travelling, if you have that option.

gloves.jpg

[elf]

Is boiled wool also known as felt?

The process is called felting. So yes, boiled wool is felted wool - either knit or woven, then submerged in hot water and beaten to open up the scales and force them to grasp each other. It can be done, also, without any preliminary conversion to thread i.e. with wool batts or hand carded wool. Most animal fibers will felt as long as they're not hair. Nearly all animals have hair, which is hard, and a downy insulating layer - except humans.

[Canoeyawl]

My eight year old niece wearing my grandmother's hand knitted sweater, which inadvertently went through the wash.
It was knitted 100 years ago...

A good fit for the wee lass now!

[Nicholas Carey]

Is boiled wool also known as felt?

No. Felting is a different process that starts with unspun fibers in the form of combed batting. Does get locked together the same way - hot water or steam, mechanical agitation to interlock the finers, and a press to compress them.

Synthetic felts are a different process that uses needle punching to interlock the fibers.

[Nicholas Carey]

Austrian Loden [cloth] is made similarly to boiled wool, but starts with a woven, rather than knitted fabric. And the Loden is made before being cut and seamed up into a garment.

It has the very useful property that it does not fray or ravel when cut or torn.

[CWSmith]

I had a pair and they were great, but you really need more to stop the wind.

[Tom from Rubicon]

My eight year old niece wearing my grandmother's hand knitted sweater, which inadvertently went through the wash.
It was knitted 100 years ago...

A good fit for the wee lass now!

Attachment 124634

A towheaded Angel in a Cardigan.

[skuthorp]

Wet Dachstein mittens are far superior to any leather glove I have come across for XC skiing, and they last much, much longer. I often used polypropylene gloves on the inside of oiled Japara mittens.

[George Jung]

Ran across this; I did not know!

https://nznaturalclothingshop.co.nz/...lothes-shrink/

here are the steps to fix it:

1. Fill your sink or basin with lukewarm water and 1/3 cup of hair conditioner

2. Pop the jumper in and let it soak for about 10 minutes

3. Drain the water out of the sink. When the sink is empty, press the jumper against the sides of the sink to rinse the jumper out, but do not wring it.

4. Put down an absorbent towel, lay the item flat on top of it and lay another towel on top. Press gently to dry the jumper.

5. Stretch the jumper back into its original shape.

6. Keep the item lying flat in a very well ventilated area until dry.

[L.W. Baxter]

at once i knew
i was not magnificent