The wool glossary
Every trade hides behind its vocabulary. This is ours, opened up: the terms used on this site and in the workshops in Swat, defined plainly. Free to cite with attribution.
Blanket scarf
An oversized scarf, typically 150 x 270 cm or larger, big enough to wear as a wrap or spread as a blanket. Designed for shared use and travel as much as for wearing. SHAAL's is woven from lambswool at 230 gsm. More.
Breathability
A fabric's ability to let water vapour pass through rather than trapping it against the skin. Wool is highly breathable because its fibres absorb and release moisture, which is why a wool layer feels warm without feeling clammy.
Cashmere
The fine undercoat down of the cashmere goat, combed out each spring. Prized for softness; fibres typically measure 14 to 19 microns. Softer but less hard-wearing than sheep's wool or yak down, and slower to recover from creasing in heavy weaves.
Chadar
The everyday wool shawl of northern Pakistan, worn by men across the Swat Valley as ordinary daily dress: thrown over a kameez to walk to the bazaar, wrapped fully in December. The tradition SHAAL's shawls come from.
Crimp
The natural waviness of a wool fibre. More crimp means more trapped air per gram of wool, and trapped air is what insulates. Crimp is a large part of why fine wools are warm beyond what their weight suggests.
Drape
How a cloth falls and moves when worn. Drape comes from the interaction of fibre, spin and weave density rather than weight alone; handwoven cloth tends to drape heavier than its weight because of small irregularities in the weave.
Felting
The matting of wool fibres into a denser fabric under moisture, heat and agitation. Done deliberately it is called fulling; done accidentally it is what happens to a wool shawl in a washing machine. The reason wool is washed cold, gently, or not at all.
First-shearing wool
Wool from a sheep's first shearing, around six to seven months old. Finer and softer than later shearings from the same animal. SHAAL's lambswool constructions use first-shearing wool. More.
Fringe
The unwoven warp ends left at the short edges of a shawl, twisted or left loose. On handwoven cloth the fringe is a natural continuation of the warp threads rather than an attached trim.
GSM
Grams per square metre, the standard measure of fabric density. Higher GSM means heavier, denser, warmer cloth. SHAAL's range runs from 139 gsm (pashmina blend) to 400 gsm (yak blend). More.
Handle
How a cloth feels when gripped and moved: its softness, weight, spring and body, taken together. Sometimes called the hand. Two fabrics of identical weight can have entirely different handles depending on fibre and weave.
Handloom
Any loom powered by the weaver's own hands and feet rather than a motor. Handloom cloth carries minute variations no machine produces, which is measurable in its drape and its slight liveliness. More.
Heddle
The cords or wires on a loom that lift alternate warp threads so the shuttle can pass between them. Raising and lowering the heddles is what creates the weave pattern, row by row.
Khadi
Hand-spun, hand-woven cloth, and the name of the loom tradition SHAAL weaves on. In the Swat Valley, Khadi weaving survives as a working economy rather than a heritage act. More.
Lambswool
Wool from young sheep, softer and finer than adult fleece. Springy, durable and warm for its price, which makes it the working core of most quality wool cloth, including three of SHAAL's five constructions.
Loft
The airiness of a yarn or cloth: how much air it holds between fibres. High loft means more insulation for the same weight. Loft comes from crimp, spin and finishing rather than from thickness alone.
Merino
A breed of sheep producing fine, soft wool, typically 15 to 24 microns. Excellent next to skin, which is why it dominates base layers. At shawl weights it is a mid-warmth fibre, below yak down and dense lambswool cloth.
Micron
One thousandth of a millimetre, the unit used for fibre diameter. Lower micron counts mean finer, softer fibres: pashm sits under 16, cashmere around 14 to 19, yak down around 16 to 19, lambswool roughly 16.5 to 25.
Pashm
The fine undercoat down of the Changthangi goat of the high Himalaya, the raw material of true pashmina. Extremely soft and extremely fragile, which is why working cloth usually blends it with stronger wool.
Pashmina
Properly, cloth woven from pashm, cashmere at its finest grade. The word has no legal protection in the UK, so most commercial pashmina contains none. SHAAL's pashmina blend states its content plainly: 30% pashm, 70% lambswool. More.
Pilling
The small balls of fibre that form where cloth rubs, at the neck or under a bag strap. Normal in soft wools and removable with a fabric comb. Denser, longer-fibred cloth pills less, which is one of yak down's quiet advantages.
Pit-loom
A wooden handloom built over a pit in the workshop floor. The weaver sits at floor level with the treadles in the pit, working the loom by hand and foot. Every SHAAL is woven on one. More.
Plain weave
The simplest weave: each weft thread passes over one warp thread and under the next. Strong, stable and slightly open, it lets a cloth breathe and shows the yarn honestly.
Reed
The comb-like frame on a loom that keeps warp threads evenly spaced and beats each new weft thread into place. The reed's spacing sets the density of the finished cloth.
Selvedge
The self-finished edge a woven cloth forms along its long sides, where the weft turns back into the weave. A clean selvedge on a shawl is a mark of controlled, even weaving.
Shawl
A large rectangle of cloth, typically 100 x 200 cm or bigger, worn over the shoulders, wrapped around the body or over the head. No fixed structure, no fastenings; the wearer decides its shape. More.
Shuttle
The boat-shaped tool that carries the weft thread through the open warp, thrown from hand to hand on a handloom. One pass of the shuttle lays one row of cloth.
Staple length
The natural length of a fibre. Longer staples spin into smoother, stronger yarn that pills less; shorter staples make softer, airier yarn. Fibre fineness and staple length together decide most of a wool's character.
Stole
A narrower, dressier relative of the shawl, usually worn open over the shoulders rather than wrapped. The line between a wide stole and a light shawl is drawn more by occasion than by measurement.
Twill
A weave that creates fine diagonal lines in the cloth by passing weft threads over and under warp threads in an offset pattern. Denser and more drapey than plain weave at the same weight.
Warp
The threads held under tension along the length of the loom, the skeleton of the cloth. Setting the warp is slow, exacting work done before any weaving can start.
Weft
The thread carried across the loom by the shuttle, passing over and under the warp to build the cloth row by row. In handweaving, the weft is where the weaver's rhythm lives.
Wrap
Used as a noun, a large soft rectangle worn over the shoulders, sitting between scarf and shawl in size. Used as a verb, what you do with all of them. In practice the words wrap and shawl overlap heavily.
Yak down
The fine undercoat of the yak, combed out each spring, around 16 to 19 microns. Warmer than sheep's wool for the same weight and notably durable, though not as soft as cashmere. The insulating half of SHAAL's warmest cloth. More.
Definitions reflect how these words are used at SHAAL and in the trade generally; where numbers are given, they are typical ranges, not laboratory guarantees. Corrections welcome via the contact page.