A week or so ago I received my first fleece from a friend who owns some sheep. This fleece wasn’t grown with the intention of spinning from it, so I was expecting it to be quite dirty and needing a bit of work. (Though that wasn’t exactly the case!)
more out of luck, this fleece is Wensleydale, she gave me that one because she knew it was nice wool, after some reading I was delighted to find out it doesn’t like felting and is on the corset side meaning I could be a little rough during the scouting and washing phase and it should be alright still.
Skirting
This was way harder than anticipated! (Doesn’t really matter how many videos or articles or books you watch or read, nothing really prepares you for what you are looking at!) I wasn’t sure how much to take off, what was matted what wasn’t. Not knowing what would happen when I washed it really wasn’t helping so a fair bit of time was spent worrying I was taking too much off, only time would tell.
As an aside, doggo’s LOVE a fleece, our two would not leave it alone and really enjoyed all the new smells, which was way too cute!
Scouring
Time to wash the wool! Again, video’s and books were read, but you can never be too sure until you get stuck in!
Eventually it was decided not to pre-comb the locks and do a small sample scour using the salad spinner, eco washing up liquid and hot water to see how it went and how many washes and rinces would be needed. (See what people mean when they say it’s hard not to want to poke and prod it! Just leaving it be is difficult!)
Eventually, after several washes in hot water, the water was starting to come out clean, so it was rinsed off with cool water to get out the detergent (realised I missed some afterwards, but that’s what learning is all about, right?)
Drying
finally, the easy bit, letting it dry! The UK weather has been warm but wet this July, so no drying outside in the sun. The test batch was laid out on a towel in the garage and time will tell what it will be like when it’s dry.
so… conclusions.
could I have done better? Yep, but there was a lot learned. There’s quite a bit of vegetable matter left in the fleece and the tips are quite dirty. I’m not sure if brushing it before it’s scoured will help with that or if combing it after will be enough.
Things to do differently next time – for starters rinsing it out properly afterwards (I think I can actually move the fleece about a bit more when the water is cool) and I completely forgot to open up the locks properly before washing so there’s that. I think a bit more skirting and getting more vm out may help too.
In part two the plan is to apply the changes to the next batch to be washed and comb out the test batch to see what we have to spin!
GeekySquidoo 