Hmmm... What else can I use wool for?

For those of you who are constantly looking for new ideas for how to use your wool stash, you may want to take a leaf out of the book of  A W Hainsworth & Sons of Stanningley, Leeds who make specialist felted woollen cloth for the apparel, technical and industrial textiles and interior fabrics industries.

After three months of laughing, and then finally – “well actually its not a bad idea”, the project finally took off.

Rachel Hainsworth, part of the family which set up the company 225 years ago and still runs the company, is the Sales and Technical Director very kindly showed us around the site and the entire production process.

Fleeces are used from the Dorset Horned sheep, bred in the UK, as their wool has the fine staple required, to produce a dense cloth. Each coffin takes three fleeces to produce. After going through the standard production process to create a felted woollen cloth, the patterns are cut out and stitched together around a very strong frame which is made of recycled cardboard. But if you are imagining a floppy coffin, don’t, these coffins are certified to carry up to 42 stone, but can carry even more, but themselves are not very heavy and are more comfortable to carry on the shoulder.
 

Personalised woollen name plates are embroidered and even with ties, to tame unruly wreaths and flowers in a high wind, these coffins are tremendously tactile and attractive to look at. It’s more like gently wrapping up your beloved in a blanket rather than the rather distancing effect of a wooden casket. As an alternative to wicker  and recycled cardboard caskets, these coffins are biodegradable as well as being from a sustainable source. Suitable for both burial or cremation, Hainsworth also produce a woollen ashes casket.

  Production Process

All Hainsworth fabric is felted, so the next process is called milling. The fabric is washed first and any oil is washed out and the degree of shrinking is carefully contolled. The cloth could shrink by up to 40%.  

In making these coffins, the team producing them were involved from the start of the project and feel a close connection to the families that use the coffins, as they are personalised within the factory, and they get to know the story behind each bereavement. 

They have  pride in their work, as they know the creation of a good product can help ease the onerous duties in difficult times for the family, particularly if the deceased themselves had expressed a wish for an eco friendly burial or cremation.

From an environmental point of view, the wool is 100% pure new British wool and therefore sustainable. The frame is made from sturdy recycled cardboard and the base is lined with a waterproof layer of biodegradable polythene. Wool ignites at a generally lower temperature than wood, so is more energy efficient and emissions are lower. By using British wool, this helps ensure that farms get a reasonable price for their fleeces, and so in the long term is a more sustainable business.

A W Hainsworth is celebrating 225 years this month and is managed by the 7th generation of Hainsworth family. With over 200 staff on site, the company  continues to innovate and look for new uses of this versatile natural fibre. Recently advertised at the Great Yorkshire Show, the biodegradable coffins look to be taking off and Serenity Knitting wish them every good fortune   

If you are interested, these coffins are being sold via JC Atkinson. 

Slubbing then takes place where the web is  twisted slightly and is then spun on to bobbins. The pressure and speed of the spinning will affect the quality of the yarn. At this stage, there is still a lot of static in the yarn, and it twists back easily, so the yarn is relaxed by being passed through a steamer for 20 mins.

Yarn from small bobbins is spun on to larger bobbins for creating the warp ends, with lengths being joined together by air splicing. The strands at the ends are blown apart by a current of air and then rejoined and twisted together to get an even yarn, that will not show up in the final woven cloth.   

 Warp threads are prepared, up to 4000 ends, ready to feed on to the looms. Each loom will weave a different quality of cloth, dense looms, using more threads will run much slower, to produce a much denser cloth. 

The cloth is then hooked up  and stretched on a tenting machine ( this is the origin of the phrase to be on tenterhooks) and passed through an oven for 5-10 minutes to dry. 

The cloth can then go through a variety of finishing and dyeing processes, depending upon what is will finally be used for.  


Many thanks to Rachel Hainsworth and staff for their time and allowing us to visit the factory.
Script by Jadwiga Bialkowska
Photos by Anna Bialkowska