How Much Time It Takes to Make a Down Shawl

Few people know that a needlewoman spends a whole month making an Orenburg down shawl. Are you surprised? Listen to the story of how down masterpieces are born.

How goats grow their down

The down for the famous shawls is "given" by goats. Not every animal's down is the same. Genuine Orenburg shawls can only be made from the down of those animals that were born and raised in the conditions of the Southern Urals.

A continental climate with sharp temperature changes, hot dry summers, frosty winters and strong winds has developed certain qualities in the animals. A reliable protective layer of the finest down largely helps them withstand the whims of the weather.

The raw material used to make yarn grows on the animals by the time the frosts arrive. The goats are ready to share their warm undercoat with people by the end of winter. The most valuable down is obtained from goats up to seven years old.

When moulting begins, the goats are combed out. The process is repeated twice. The total amount of down from one goat is on average 350 grams. This is enough for a shawl with an area of one square metre.

Stages of making yarn

The down combed from the goats is first sorted by hand. Any stiff fibres are removed, as is dirt stuck to the animals. Then the raw material is washed, dried and combed at least twice, aligning the fibres in the right direction and removing the short ones. The first combing with a comb with relatively widely spaced teeth takes about 20 hours. The work is done without haste; the finest fibres must not be damaged. The second combing with a finer comb takes half as long.

A fine thread is spun from the prepared raw material. At first it consists only of down fibres. This work takes at least 20 hours. If nothing more is done, the thread will quickly "unravel". A "foreign" thread helps strengthen the yarn, making it strong and suitable for knitting. It takes twelve hours to combine the spun semi-finished thread with silk or cotton thread.

To give strength, both threads are twisted together. This is done by hand using spindles. The work takes a whole 8-hour shift.

The final stage is winding the yarn into balls. With certain skills, it takes the least time – only 2 hours.

It turns out that the preparation (not counting combing the animals) takes a full 72 hours.

The knitting process

Shawls are knitted on fine needles. The number of stitches in one row depends on the pattern of the item. For head covering with a side of 1 metre, about four hundred stitches may be needed. When casting on, the knitter must be very attentive. An extra stitch can be removed unnoticed, but too few stitches will shift the pattern. A skewed pattern may become noticeable, spoiling the overall look of the item.

Complex ornaments take considerably more time than an item with a dense centre made in shawl knitting. The average time needed to knit the main shawl fabric is a hundred hours.

The square fabric becomes an elegant shawl after its sides are decorated with an openwork border. Knitting the pointed edging also takes time. Edging the fabric with a border of medium width requires eight to twelve hours of continuous work from the craftswoman.

Work with the needles takes one hundred and twelve hours. Adding up the preparatory and main work, we get 184 hours. That's a whole working month!

Of course, the calculations give a very relative picture. Some knitters can work faster, others slower. Needlewomen do not do the preparatory work separately for each shawl. There is often a division of labour among craftswomen. Some spin and prepare yarn; others come up with patterns, do the calculations and knit.

Genuine Orenburg shawls are distinguished by warmth, softness and elegance. It is not for nothing that they take so much time to make.