What Wool is Best for Making Pulled Wool Saddle Pads?
I’ve used all sorts of different wool making pulled wool pads, and when you spend 8-10 hours pulling wool on a saddle pad, you develop some preferences.
Merino? I think that breed has had almost as successful marketing campaign as Angus beef. It might be great for clothes, but it is far from my favorite when I’m making a pulled wool saddle pad. It’s staple length (the length of the shorn fiber off the animal) can be short (1-2 inches), making it hard to manage when pulling loops. It doesn’t want to stay together, often fraying apart as you’re working with it. Inevitably, when I am making a pad with Merino, I find a lot of it ends up in my scrap bag, it doesn’t always want to split into four even sections, and you can end up with a skinny quarter that makes sad, little miniature loops.
In addition to having a shorter staple, it has a finer micron (the average diameter of the fiber). Most Merino I have worked with has a micron of less than 25.
The lower the micron number, the finer the wool is. That means each fiber is on average very skinny. This is the opposite of what you want when making a pulled wool saddle pad.
Why? Lower micron number means you have to buy more wool to make the same size pad. It will take about 6-7lbs of wool with 25-35 microns to make a 32 x 32” and 2.5” thick saddle pad. When using wool of lower micron, you’ll need several more pounds to make the same size saddle pad.
I judge less on breeds, and more on the specifics of the roving in front of me. It could come off a wooly spooted Dorsetcorriedaleino, and if the roving is of high micron count (25-35 micron) and at least 2-3 inch staple length, I know it’s going to be easy to work with and yield a very nice saddle pad.
Wool roving is expensive. Dyed roving is very expensive. I mainly work with natural colors due to them being cheaper, and better quality that dyed roving. As part of the dyeing process, the wool has to simmer in very hot water for an extended period of time, further leaching the wool of its natural lanolin. This lanolin is what helps keep the roving together, and I believe makes for a high quality, longer lasting saddle pad that will felt down, and repel water and sweat.
Due to that loss of lanolin in the dyeing process, dyed roving can also be more difficult to work with. Improperly dyed roving can have felted slumps in it that will need to be pulled out, this is a common issue I see in dyed wool from sources such as Shep’s Wool on eBay.
When purchasing wool roving in person, I like to open the bag and test the fibers out by drafting a small section between my hands. If it pulls apart easily but stays together, you know this has a good staple length, and isn’t going to be so fine that it falls apart as you’re working with it. I also want it to smell like sheep, that means it has some lanolin left in it. Highly processed roving, such as pure white, won’t smell like sheep anymore, so you know where it’s lanolin content has gone…down the drain!
Hope this helps some others out and saves them accumulating a big ol’ scrap bag of wool roving scraps. If you’re interested in what to do with those scraps, check out my PDF guide where I talk about how to make felted soap and dryer balls.
Happy trails !
Sincerely,
Sabrina Squires
Sleepy Creek Tack
