Thursday 12 May 2011

Fleece washing

I am kind of having my own mini blog week this week. The early morning sunshine has been waking me up early so I have been doing a post each morning in the time I would usually go back to sleep.
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This morning I had a bit of a crisis. I logged into blogger and it told me I didn't have any blogs, would I like to start one?
This resulted in a bit of a panic, I thought it was gone forever. Fortunately after the computer inexplicably turned itself off and on again the blogs returned, so I don't have to remake them. Relieved is not the word!
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On to the fibery goodness. Today's ramblings are going to be about fleece washing. I talked about this a lot last year as I did my first fleece. This the cleaning portion of the fleece I discussed sorting a couple of weeks back.
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The locks came out of the bucket kind of like a jelly from a mold (jello to anyone in the US), but obviously much less tasty.
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This did make it easy to peel off a thin layer of locks and put it into a washing bag.
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The shower was set to cold and low pressure and the bag of locks rinsed. That's right, straight onto the fleece. This gets masses of dirt out. Best not to think about what the dirt is. A few squeezes and flips to make sure that as much as possible had gone.
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Heat and soap are needed to remove the lanolin. One bucket of hot soapy water and a couple of bags of locks. Leave for ten minutes or so (that bit sounds like a recipe)

Two rinsings in hot but non soapy water clear a lot of the remaining soap and lanolin.
Finally a spin in an old salad spinner shifts a lot of the water. This is a big improvement as it dried in a single sunny day rather than the two or three days it takes without a spin.

The bags were hung on the line to dry and are now waiting to be carded.
I have not yet decided if I am going to do more fleeces. I have a lot to card and spin but after that I might go back to purchased roving. While it is good to have experienced the process it takes a lot of hours to get a smallish quantity of usable fluff, and honestly roving for standard breeds is not overly expensive, especially if you priced up all the hours it takes to sort, wash and card.

6 comments:

  1. Ah, you said the magical words. There is a lot that goes into getting nice fleece. It was definitely a good experience for you to learn.

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  2. I can't wait to see it all clean and fluffy!

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  3. I left you a message the other day but it looks like Blogger ate it.

    I'm so glad that you have experienced fleece prep...makes what you do purchase all the better for enjoyment and understanding.

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  4. I have to go get a salad spinner!

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  5. Ooo, you are doing what I'm doing of late. Only I am using a large tub and my laundry sink in the basement. It's a long slow process but I'm enjoying how much I've learned over the past couple of months. Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

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  6. I love how you remarked it sounds like a recipe - I often feel like I'm following cooking recipes for fiber prep :)

    Great idea with the salad spinner - I've been using my washer on the spin cycle, but a salad spinner would be perfect for a small amount of fleece.

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