30 Incredible Fiber Facts You Should Know

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If you’re like most dedicated knitters and crocheters, then you live for the feel of soft, squishy yarn in your hands. But how much do you actually know about the fibers that make up this beloved material? Whether you’re itching to learn more about what makes your projects tick or hoping to expand your crafting repertoire with some new fibers, this article has all the fiber facts you need! So hold on tight—we’ve gotta lot of ground to cover!

Above: Learn 30 incredible fiber facts, including how alpaca and llama are different. Image source – Adobe Stock

Fiber Facts

All About Merino

1 Merino is a fine wool prized by knitters and textile manufacturers alike.

2 The Merino sheep was developed in Spain in the 1200s by royalty who imported rams from Berber tribes in Morocco (a short eight-mile trip across the Strait of Gibraltar) and cross-bred them with their own ewes. The Spanish continued to refine the Merino over the following centuries.

3 The royals strictly protected their claim to these wonder-sheep, but eventually, they started gifting them to royals in other countries.

4 Merinos are now raised all over the world. Australia produces over 50 percent of the world’s Merino wool.

5 Merino felts easily; avoid agitation when cleaning or handling Merino fibers, yarns, and fabrics.

6 Merinos grow dense fleece because they have more follicles per square inch of skin than other breeds. Some Merino strains have been bred for wrinkled skin, which increases surface area and leads to more fleece on the animal.

7 If a Merino is not sheared, its dense fleece will keep growing and can endanger the life of the animal. You may remember “Shrek” the Merino sheep who escaped his grazing pasture and avoided shearing for six years. His fleece weighed about 60 pounds.

8 Merino fiber has a staple length between 2 and 5 inches.

9 Merino fiber ranges from 11.5 to 22 microns in diameter.

10 Merino fiber is predominantly white.

Alpaca & Llama Fiber Facts

11 South American camelids are descended from a common ancestor that most likely crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia during an ice age. Two species then evolved: the vicuña and guanaco. Humans domesticated them, leading to two new species: the alpaca and the llama.

12 Llamas hail from South America’s highlands, where humans have used them as pack animals for thousands of years.

13 Llama fiber varies a lot from one animal to the next and within the fleece of a single animal. Once the coarse guard hairs are removed, some llama fiber is very fine, with a diameter ranging from 16 to 45 microns. Llama fiber is long, with a staple length ranging from 3 to 8 inches.

14 Bigger than his alpaca cousin, the llama is also characterized by a longer head and curved ears called “banana ears.”

15 Alpaca are categorized into two types: huacaya and suri.

16 Alpaca and llama fiber will felt.

17 Llama and alpaca fiber comes in many colors, from white through brown and all the way to black and back.

18 Alpaca most be shorn while many llamas shed their fiber naturally.

19 Llama fiber is warmer than Merino but Merino warmer than alpaca.

20 Yes, camelids like llama and alpaca really spit. However, it’s only when they’re annoyed.

Can’t Get Enough Cashmere Trivia

21 Cashmere grows under the coarse and shaggy outercoat of the goat Capra hircus laniger.

22 Although now found around the world, these two-coated goats are believed to have originated on the high, windswept pastures of Central Asia, where they developed a downy undercoat in order to survive where other animals could not—in cold, mountainous areas with marginal grazing.

23 Because the rugged environment supports a very limited number of animals and because each goat has the capacity to produce only about four to six ounces of cashmere annually (it takes about 12 to 16 ounces to make an adult sweater in fingering-weight yarn), cashmere fiber has always been limited in supply and highly coveted.

24 Today, most cashmere-producing goats inhabit the mountainous areas of China and Mongolia, ranging freely with their herders in a constant search for new grazing in areas unsuitable for agriculture.

25 Cashmere-producing goats naturally shed. In China and Mongolia, the fleece is removed by hand with a coarse comb.

26 Very little cashmere comes from the Kashmir Province of India from which its name is derived. Three quarters of the world’s cashmere comes from China and Mongolia, with China producing over half. Iran and Afghanistan produce about one fifth of the fine fiber. The remaining fiber is produced in Turkey, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the United States.

27 Cashmere is most commonly blended with silk and Merino.

28 It is estimated that there are approximately 700 million cashmere-producing goats grazing around the world.

29 Most commercially-available cashmere is white but it can also be varying shades of brown and light to medium shades of gray.

30 Cashmere is very difficult to felt.

Fact Check

Want to fact check our list? Here are a list of sources for these fabulous fiber facts and more.

• Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius (Storey, 2011). [affiliate link]
• The History of Wool from Woolmark
• Britannica.com – “Cashmere”

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How many of these fiber fact did you already know? Do you think we missed an important fact? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Portions of this article were originally published in Interweave Knits Summer 2001 by Dawn Hamilton and Interweave Knits Fall 2017 by Lisa Shroyer. New facts have been added by Interweave Editorial Staff.

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