how does wool go from fibre to garment?
A fibre exploration and graduate
collection by ronnie teo

The first step to working with wool is
picking all the great, dirt, and other
natural fibres out of the wool. Without
picking the wool, the built up grease
and dirt will still remain after the
washing process. It took me about 4
full days of work to pick through 6
pounds of wool.

The next step is pattern writing and
perfecting. For this project I made
the originald dress pattern from a
woven fabric. I then made a crochet
pattern and compared it to my
woven muslin as I worked the
crochet pieces. I was very happy
with the resulting fit and it
minimized the usual time I spend
working and reworking crochet
patterns.

The wool can be dyed
before or after spinning,
but I decided to dye
after. My collection is a
micture of natural and
synthetic dye
techniques.

Once the wool is dry, it must be
carded so that the fibres are
aligned. This helps the fibres lay
even and look consistent during
spinning and felting
Finished! Here is the final look
made from locally sourced natural
fibres and recycled yarns!

Once the wool is properly
prepped, it can be used to
make so many different
items with so many
different techniques. My
collection explores
crocheting, knitting, wet
felting. needle felting, and
tufting.

The wool must be washed in manageable
batches (about 1 pound) in order to
prevent the fibres matting together. The
washing process includes one wash with
soap and hot water, then 2-4 rinses with
hot water. This process is crucial and slow
as the wool cannot be agitated or it will felt
together. It took me at least 3 full days to
wash all of Daylily's fleece.

After carding the wool can be spun
into yarn. I used a drop spindle to
make my yarn, a techniques which
uses the spindle and gravity to draw
and sing the wool fibres into one long
strand. I most used two ply yarn for
my project, which involves spinning
two strands of yarn together. It takes
my about 2 full days to spin one ball of
yarn. one ball creates roughly a 12
inch by 12 inch swatch

My project starts with this
sweet sheep named Daylily!
Her fleece yield me about 6
pounds of wool. She can be
found at Barnston Island Fibre
farm which is a 2 minute ferry
ride away from Surrey, BC.

The last step in making this dress
was creating the final pieces and
finalizing the surface details. I
wanted it to be very textured and
chose to depict a scene that would
lend itself to the texture of the
wool. As you can see, there's Daylily
about to embark on an adventure!