In preparation for my spinning class this past Saturday, I decided to wash up my very first batch of raw fleece over at my mom's house. I had requested some samples from someone (sorry, I lost her name and email) who promptly sent me these lovely (and generous) unmarked samples in the greece. I tried emailing her after I recieved the samples to find out what they are and how much she was selling for, but I never heard back from her. So this sat in my stash until Friday night when I decided to try my hand at washing. I used the directions on icanspin.com and it worked great. Here is my work area all set up for the first small batch.
This is what the water looked like after I first put the white fleece in the hot water. It got really nasty after it soaked for a while but I forgot to take a picture, doh!
Here it is on the second rinse. Big difference! I gave it about 3 more rinses to be sure I had gotten most of the dirt and grease out, but it was pretty clean after just one rinse.
Purty!
I also washed some light and dark grey fleece that she sent me. Here you can see how dirty the water was after the very first rinse. While I was doing this I was wondering how people get the water hot enough in their washer to wash a whole fleece. I was using a mixture of boiling water and hot sink water here to melt all the lanolin. I'm interested in hearing how any of you wash a whole fleece, cuz I think I will be ordering one soon *smile*
Here is a picture of all the fleece drying on the rack. It came out really soft and sqooshy (is that a word?). I spun some of it up in class but (of course) I forgot to take pictures. I'm going to take some tonight and post them tomorrow.
The class was a lot of fun. It was taught by John Pitblado who is a great instructor and who also makes some really nice novelty yarns. We also used viking combs to prepare the wool for a very smooth and even worsted yarn. If I weren't so broke, I would have bought a set of combs right there on the spot. They are so much more fun to use than carders, and the yarn comes out so silky smooth! I thought about trying to make some of my own but I don't really see how I can do that so I guess I will have to go without :(
2 comments:
LOL.....I am one of those strange people who loves picking thru a raw fleece and cleaning it. Just seeing what it turns into is so cool! I love the smells and the feel of the grease and the finished wool once it is cleaned.
Oh, I adore raw fleece, too! Seems like you have a good technique for cleaning; it turned out beautifully!
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