# Process used in production of fiber

The **cleaning process** used in fiber production, chemicals used and the
temperature of the water used in cleaning all impact the quality and
felting ability of the wool. Some harsh processes and
chemicals damage the wool and the resulting felt can be more hairy.

Small amount of lanolin left in the wool after cleaning may help the
felting process. It is of course possible to felt in the grease,
without any cleaing as well, commonly used for felting fleeces. The
lanolin in the wool works both as a type of resist to retard the
felting but also helps the felting by allowing the fibers move around
better.

The **carding process** to produce roving or batting may keep long
fibers or break them down into short fibers like in **short fiber
merino** or **kap wool** in the extreme. Fibers with many short ends
will felt differently than long roving. Batts organize fibers in many
random directions, impacting the resulting felt quality. On the other
side, sheep that molt their wool will have fewer raw ends. Vikings
used this property to build woven sails for their sheep (Source
{cite}`coulthard2020short`) and would produce different quality of
felt.

**Chemical processes like coating and dyeing** after wool is cleaned
involves adding a coating to make it more hydrophobic. I personally
experienced this with DHC fibers when I tried to overdye them. This
does not impact their felting ability and likely results in a less
hairy felt. In the extreme, the **superwash process** coats all scales
of the wool in a chemical, making them impossible to wet felt.

The color of dyes impact the underlying chemicals used, which can
impact the felting ability of the wool. The black dyed wool is often
hardest to felt.