I had barely cut my teeth on roving; in fact, I hadn’t even been introduced to a batt yet, when I felt the urge to get a raw fleece and process it for myself. There was just something so appealing about starting as close to the beginning as I could get. And from the moment I walked into a sheep barn an hour away from my house I knew this was going to be a love affair to last the rest of my life.
Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can still smell the lanolin, and less pleasant things, that made up the smell of that day.

Choosing a Fleece

Would you like to learn what to look for in choosing a fleece? This is the best article I’ve seen on the subject. It gives you such a sense of knowing what you’re talking about. A little experience and you’re a natural. It makes walking into a room full of cut fleeces seem like even more of a candy store.

Buying a Fleece

Alrighty, so you’ve picked out a fleece that you like. A couple things you might want to know.

1) Fleeces are usually priced by the pound, as in their weight. This can range all over from five dollars a pound to twenty dollars a pound and beyond. Usually the price reflects the quality of the fleece. Use your buyer’s instinct and your eyes to tell you if you’re paying top dollar for a low quality fleece.

2) Because fleeces are priced by their weight, keep in mind that oftentimes the weight includes the grease, which you will be washing out. Your fleece can reduce in weight by next-to-nothing to about half, which is the highest I’ve heard of. (Merino is a very greasy fleece, and it loses somewhere in the neighborhood of half its weight during washing.)

3) Sometimes the seller will be willing to sell you part of a fleece, sometimes not. Ask and be friendly.

4) Keep in mind, if you buy a fleece over the internet, you’ve still got shipping to deal with. All those pounds of fluff turn into shipping costs.

Washing the Fleece

Most fleeces you buy are going to be “raw,” meaning they haven’t been washed yet. All the natural grease (like you get on your hair) and any dirt is still in the wool. You can spin it this way if you really want to, but it makes everything greasy and yucky and can get a bit stout smelling.

If you have a top loading washing machine, there is a way to wash your fleece in that. That article also includes a hand washing method. I personally don’t do some of things that are mentioned, but that proves that everyone washes wool in a different, yet successful way. There is really no single “right” way to wash fleece. Whatever you do, as long as the result is nice, usable fleece, it works.

If, like me, you have a front loader, or just don’t like the idea of putting a greasy fleece into your nice, clean washing machine, you can do it the old-fashioned way in a big pot. I like to pick over the fleece first and make sure there aren’t any big hunks of any unpleasant things or any large pieces of vegetable material. (This process called “picking” or “skirting” the fleece.) Then I presoak them for a few hours or overnight to get rid of the first layer of dirt. After one or two of these presoaks I go ahead and follow this process. It’s rather vague, I know. I shall try to rectify that soon. Since I wrote that I have played with the numbers a bit, but I’m very guilty of not writing any of it down.

There are lots of different things you can put in to the wool to remove the grease. I like using Simple Green (but it’s a pretty strong chemical. It’s bought at car part stores, for goodness sake!) and Dawn dishwashing liquid. Some people use hot water and vinegar. Some people prefer hair shampoo. It really depends on what you want to try.

The important thing is to not felt* the wool. Felting occurs when the fleece gets rubbed, agitated, or experiences a sudden temperature change. When rinsing wool, make sure the rinse water is the same temperature as the water the wool was just sitting in. Do not vigorously stir the wool. Bad things happen.

*Felting is when the fibers become so compacted onto each other they resemble a piece of felt. Very bad spinning material.

Drying

When the wool is done being washed, it’s important that you lay it out to dry. Balled up wool can start to smell musty very quickly. Gently lay it out on a towel and/or drying rack and let it sit for several days. Wool can hold . . . I believe 30% of its own weight in water before it even feels wet, so give it a while to dry. Laying it in direct sunlight is great, although I’ve only done that with white fleece. I don’t know if the sun would lighten the pigment on darker wool. (Does this mean I get to go buy a black fleece to find out?)

What do you do with it when it’s dry? You’ll find out tomorrow.

Every single scrap of Iowa fleece I have left (except for one chunk that had lots of VM) has been pre-soaked twice. All of it. Excuse me while I go collapse.

I spent I don’t know how long outside in the backyard hauling pots of water, wrestling fleece, spinning out the excess water, and shooing away any curious insects. It wiped me out. I have this feeling that the neighbors think I’m some sort of odd person — constantly lugging pots out there, whirling around spraying water in every direction — yeah. Well, if they want some wool they can have it. I just want to get it all washed by the second of August.

Why the reason for this sudden haste? A certain special friend is coming to visit next month, and she’s bringing a toy with her. Something very beneficial for those who have lots of fiber to process. Any guesses?

A drum carder.

Ta-da! Cymbal crash. Wild applause.

And, on the knitting front, (while it’s not quite as exciting as a drum carder) I threw the potential sock pattern out the window and started spinning the indigo yarn the way I wanted to spin it. If I really want to use that pattern once the yarn is done I’ll go dig around in the roses until I find it, but in the meantime I’m having fun.

Newly-Washed Wool

Therefore, I use both pots for soaking and heating and such. We needed the smaller pot for a dye job, so I had to haul both large pots and the colander (with the help of someone stronger) down the porch steps, then drain them, hoist the up and down to get out extra water, put both in the big pot, run back upstairs with the smaller pot, fill it with water, haul it down to the rest of the operation, drain and rinse and hoist again, then bring everything back up. Pick through the fleece, put it all into the big pot to soak longer, and then dye the three skeins of yarn. Sorry, I don’t have pictures of the yarn.

So, now the wool is sitting in the big pot comfortably soaking. I need to drain it so I can use the pot for a certain dye project I’ve been planning. Yes, it’s the cochineal.

Three Skeins

I’d like to get it all spun up into yarn before the end of next week. In the meantime, the two skeins of brown and the little bit of fiber left to be spun are sitting on the sidelines watching.

Brown Yarn

The alpaca is coming along well. I wound off the second bobbin-full just a little while ago.

Oh, and I completely forgot about Daisy’s fleece for a day or so, then never got around to rinsing it out. I finally did it today. Whew. It was a bit, shall we say, ripe? Not as bad as it could have been, and it rinsed out amazingly well. I may have to try forgetting about fleece more often! It’s currently soaking in a lukewarm bath to bring it up to a closer temperature to the near-boiling water it’s going to be dunked into when I wash it with the Simple Green and Dawn.

A Bobbin of Joy

The original idea was to try for a sport weight yarn, but I don’t know if that’s what this will turn out as. I spun a gazillion little samples to see what the best amount of twist would be. (And promptly forgot which sample went with which amount of twist.) But, the alpaca seems to be behaving, and I’m getting pretty good at separating out the coarser, slippery hairs. Wait, that sounds funny—how can something be slippery and coarse? . . . but that’s really the only way I can describe it.

I also finished blocking the blue merino-bamboo wrap. Isn’t it pretty?

Little Three-Petel Flowers

Oh, and the Jester sock yarn is done. Sorry, that one slipped under the radar. I love the copper sparkles. (Which you can’t really see in this picture.)

More Sock Yarn

And, last but not least, I started spinning the brown whatever-it-is wool that’s been sitting in my closet from clear back in August. I’m hoping to make it into a felted bag, so I’m spinning it in a long draw, light-and-fluffy yarn that should felt well. The only problem is that I miscalculated the twist on the first bobbin-full with the result that it’s not plying well. I’ll get just a little bit of ply in there, then BAM it’s over plyed. (And you know, I think I’ve been spelling “plyed” wrong. I’m going to switch to “plied.”)

It Dreams of Being Yarn

And, on top of that, the yarn (which is very inconsistent) is getting too big to fit through the orifice. I think I shall go through and re-spin it. Thankfully I didn’t spin all the wool before I discovered this. Only half.

I’ve got the last of Daisy’s fleece soaking, pre-requisite to being washed. I think there’s a pound and half left. Not enough for a sweater, but I think it’ll make a nice, lacy shawl. Although I’m not sure about some of the fleece that went in. It looks a bit felted on the cut end of the locks, and the grease has hardened quite a bit. We’ll see what happens. The soaking water currently resembles a very strong mud-tea.

Rebecca's Wool Locks

It’s not as soft as the Merino blend I’ve been spinning (obviously), but it looks like it will have a nice spinning texture and be a well-wearing yarn. I think I shall make it into a long sleeve pullover, or zipped cardigan. There’s two pounds of it, so there should be enough fiber. If there isn’t, I’ve been eyeing a pattern for a short-sleeve pullover.

Oh So Pretty

My aunt and I set up an assembly line and ran all fifteen skeins through, (having fun the whole time, of course). We dunked a skein into a pot of hot water and dishwashing liquid, then rinsed it out in the sink with some more hot water, and repeated once more. Then we hung the wet skein on a laundry rack to dry. Even though I pressed most of the water out of the skein before we hung it up, by the time we finished, the towel under the rack was wet, and we had to press the skeins dry again.

A couple of them bled into the wash water a bit. The pink varigated one bled the most. The water had a definite red cast to it. Odd. Anyway, now they are all hanging up in a row to dry. Well, sort of a row. They’re hanging wherever I could find a spot on the rack to hang them.

More Violets Roving

And here is the first yarn I have spun from hand-dyed fiber!

Hand Dyed and Hand Spun

I’ve been busily washing some fleece this morning. It’s a white Dorset/Tunis/Romney cross with a four inch staple length. “Wait a minute!” you say. “What happened to the Corridale/Cotswold mix you got at the sheep farm?” Well, that was much more expensive, so I figure I’ll practice on the inexpensive stuff before I tackle that particular fleece.

Now that I’ve finished those four skeins, I think I shall take some time out to set the twist in all the yarn I’ve stashed away . . . I think there are fourteen skeins or so waiting to be set.

The SAFF is coming up soon! I’m so excited. I need to start making a wish list and researching the different vendors that will be there. Otherwise I’ll end up running around in little circles, squeaking in panic and glee.

Here’s another picture of the hand-dyed roving turned into a worsted weight yarn.

The Full Skein

I filled a really big pot 3/4 of the way full of water, then brought it to a boil and turned off the heat. Next, I added two tablespoons of dishwashing soap and almost a cup of Simple Green.

The Wool in the Wash

Then we heaved it down the porch steps and dumped the lanolin-laced, dirty water and the hopefully clean fiber into the colander. We left it in the colander for the rinsing, which we accomplished by hauling out a smaller pot of lukewarm water mixed with a splash of rubbing alcohol and slowly pouring it over the fiber. The rubbing alcohol is supposed to hold the lanolin in suspension so it doesn’t latch back on to the wool. This done, we hauled the fairly well rinsed fiber (still in the colander) inside to the kitchen sink, where we rinsed it some more.

The Wool After the First Round

Here it is. Almost dry!

Resting after the Second Wash