Uses for unwanted fleece part 1

Line a hanging basket for the garden

Fleece preparation- lock picking

It seems that April has decided it is a summer month now, we are having blazing sunshine and everyone is walking around dressed for summer.

I decided to declare yesterday an early start to the long weekend so I could finally tackle the fleece that has been sitting in my dining room since last year (the benefits of working at home, will have to catch up later though!).

I took it out into the garden and tipped it out, had a quick panic on finding a giant dead moth but decided it was not a problem as it was not a clothes moth type.

My first plan had been to wash the whole lot, but I decided to be brutal and only keep the best bits.

Guide to lock picking:

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  Choose a sunny day


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  Apply lots of sun screen


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  Find a chair (suitably patriotic in this case)


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  Unroll fleece on to lawn


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  Take a large handful


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  Pull each lock out of the clump and store in a bucket


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  Be prepared for a very long day!

I was really mean with this, anything dirty, weak, overly messy at the tips or short was scrapped. I think I kept less than half. The orange bucket is full to the top with well compacted locks so I have plenty to work with and it is all the good stuff.


The "waste" parts will either be composted or used to line hanging baskets and possibly as a mulch (need to research this first to check I will not end up killing my plants.

Hopefully the sun will be back later today so I can get those locks washed and out the dry.

Getting my spin on

It has taken about five months, but I finally have some yarn made from raw sheep fleece. The processing takes longer than I could have ever imagined, but I now have enough to make a Christmas present for my Mum (they are her sheep).
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The lazy kate type arrangement on my wheel is not really any good for plying, to be honest it is really just a bobbin holder, and only takes two bobbins anyway. I converted a sturdy shoe box into a nice alternative- finally a use for those bamboo straights that have not had a look in since I learnt about circulars! It also serves nicely to store my spare bobbins now I have emptied them.
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I managed to delete the photo of the singles, and obviously can't take another one as I spent a significant chunk of yesterday plying the lot. The two spindles on the right are filled with three ply (70g and 60g), the one on the left is the tail ends of the singles Navajo plied once one of the singles ran out (9g).
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I am really quite ridiculously excited about these, they are not overtwisted or anything (this is a big achievement for me). Not quite as smooth as a commercial top/roving, but still reasonable.
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The photos were taken presoaking, it is all now sat in a big pot of water.

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The next step will be to dye it as it looks a kind of grubby grey and who wants a hat that looks dirty? I am obviously somewhat nervous about the dying step (non superwash is new territory for me), and to add to it I have a huge dilemma over what colour to go for. It needs to be a single, fairly plain colour. Currently I am toying with black or dark red, maybe with an undyed stripe. Annoyingly I have the perfect blue, but I have already used that on my brother in law's hat and I am not making them matching hats, would be odd.

Techniques- Fleece washing round up

As I tried a lot of fleece washing methods I thought a round up post would be a good idea so next year I can see what to do and what to avoid.

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Starting with this, a Suffolk fleece, so fairly robust and felting resistant.

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Lingerie bags and buckets

Sort the fleece into chunks and place them into lingerie washing/laundry bags. Not too much in each bag.

Put the bags into a bucket(s) of cold water and leave to soak for a few hours. Change the water and give them a second cold soaking for a while, even overnight. Do not pack too much into each bucket.

Do a very hot wash cycle- once with dish washing soap, once with clear water and once with vinegar and a little hair conditioner, soaking for about twenty minutes each time. Do not run hot water directly onto the fleece or go from hot to cold water. Avoid moving the fleece too much.

Drain and squeeze/spin as much of the water out as possible.

Hang the bags to dry or lay them flat over a mesh drier.

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This gives a fairly clean fleece, there were still some dirty patches and the tips were stuck together. It also uses a lot of hot water.

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Lock by lock

Prepare three tubs/buckets as for the hot wash cycle above.

Pull a lock from the fleecey mass and swish it in each of the buckets in turn until it is clean. Put into lingerie bags to dry.

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This gets the fibre nice and clean and the locks are sorted ready for combing or carding. It takes ages though and losing the bit of dirtiness at the tip of the lock means it does not stay together particularly well during the drying.

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Bags of locks

Take a chunk of fleece and gently but firmly pull out all of the locks. Lay them flat and thinly spread into lingerie type washing bags.

Do a cold water soak for several hours/overnight.

Do a three cycle hot wash (soap, nothing, vinegar and hair conditioner) trying to keep the bag fairly flat to avoid the locks clumping together. Lay flat to dry.

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This gave fairly clean locks which dried very quickly. There is also less to store as the junk has been removed and time is saved when carding/combing as the locks are already sorted for you. It does take ages to get them sorted and into bags though.

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Washing machine on cold

Sort the fleece into chunks and place into lingerie bags. Put through the washing machine on a cold wash with normal machine washing liquid.

Do a three cycle hot wash (soap, nothing, vinegar and hair conditioner) and spin/squeeze out as much water as possible. Dry.

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A little felting occurred, as the machine wash did not remove the lanolin at all it was not really worth doing.

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Washing machine on warm

Sort the fleece into chunks and place into lingerie bags.

Put through washing machine at 40 degrees centigrade using normal machine washing liquid.

Dry

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This method resulted in quite a bit of felting, it was possible to pull locks out though. There was no greasiness left in the fibre. Also not really worth doing.

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Shower hosing

Divide fleece in manageable chunks. Put in bath tub and spray with shower set to cold until the water is running clear from all parts of the fleece.

Do a three cycle hot wash (soap, nothing, vinegar and hair conditioner) then squeeze/spin water out and put into laundry bags to dry.

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This worked well and gave the cleanest of the washes. It does still smell a bit sheepy, I think more water during the hot wash stage might have helped. This could be a downside of washing in fairly large chunks.

I am most likely to use this method to wash the fleece I have left.

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The end result (this was a bags of locks wash):

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Techniques- More fibre washing

I have been watching a thread called "No more lingerie bag scouring for me" in the fibre preparation group on Ravelry. The point of the thread is fairly obvious from the title, it discusses how someone tried washing with free fleece and got great results. As I was on my last chunk of fleece I thought I would give it a go.

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First up spread the fleece out in the bath tub. I still did it in chunks, but reasonably large ones compared to what I would put in a bag.

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Set the shower to cold.

Take a deep breath and spray that fleece!

Remember to breathe!

Lot of nastiness washed away, when the water ran clear I gave it a squeeze and scooped it into a bucket while I did the next bit of fleece.
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Once it was all well rinsed and running clear I did a hot wash cycle (soap, no soap, vinegar and conditioner) using the entire tub.

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It worked really really well!
I have to agree with the original thread poster that it is the cleanest of all my washes, the tips are still a little stuck together, but I find that helpful for carding/combing anyway and the bulk of the fleece is lovely and white. There was no felting at all!
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I will definitely be using this method again as I have found myself with a extra fleece that needs cleaning. It seems to clean better and I can get more done faster using the shower method than using buckets. Obviously it would probably be a bad idea for delicate fibres, those that felt easily, but for this fairly robust Suffolk it seems to work out great.
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I do have a problem with getting it dry though, the British autumn has set in with a lot of rain.

Techniques- Fleece washing take 2

With the first fleece washed I decided to experiment a bit more with washing the second one. I tried out three different methods this time.

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Since carding means pulling out the locks to load onto the carder I figured doing this before washing means less fibre to wash and store as the rubbishy bits are removed.

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Locks pulled out from the fleece:
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Put into a washing bag flat in thin layers
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The bags of locks were washed in the same way as the bags of fleece- a cold soak followed by a hot soapy wash, a hot rinse and a final hot rinse with vinegar and hair conditioner. Excess water was squeezed out and the bags laid out to dry.
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The fibre was cleaner than that washed without sorting, and also dried faster. It takes much longer though as the locks have to be sorted before washing. This means keeping stinky fleece around the place longer which is a bit of a drawback.
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In the search for speed I risked a few bags of fleece in the washing machine. The first was on a cold wash with regular clothes washing liquid. Some felting occured, not too badly and locks could still be pulled out. The cold wash had not cleaned out the lanolin so the fibre was still greasy and smelled sheepy. These bags went through the hot handwash process to finish them so not much time saved.
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The second machine wash was a 40 degree one. A lot of feltiness in places with this one but still possible to pull locks out and they should be fine for carding or combing. The lanolin seems to have been mostly washed out of this one so no handwashing required.
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Next week I will do a washing method round up so I can remember what to do!

Fibre washing fail

Last week I finally collected two fleeces that have been waiting for me at my parents' house since shearing. They are mainly Suffolk, with a small amount of various (including Welsh Hill sheep, don't know what else) mixed in many generations back.

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I resisted the temptation to play with them instead of working all week and got to them this weekend.

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I attempted to roll one out on a sheet, couldn't quite work out how it was rolled so just kind of spread it out, one sheep makes a lot of fluff!

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The really dirty skirting bits had been pulled off at shearing time before it was rolled up.
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According to the books and interweb the next step is sorting, I didn't really know what I was doing (nothing new there!) but even I can see these locks are different lengths:
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I went across the fleece pulling out a lock here and there and comparing the length, it seemed to be mostly two lengths. Most of it was the shorter one, which is in two piles at the back and the longer length which is in the front pile. The longer stuff also seemed to be the dirtier bit, no poo but fairly yellow (wee?- hmmmm why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, cheap floof).
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I found some laundry bags (Dunelm Mill, 99p for a three size pack for any UK residents) and put the longer length fleece in, not too much in each bag.
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Next step is washing, there are so many different instructions online I just decided to go for it and see how it went, after all if it felted I have plenty more!
I did a cold soak with Fairy liquid first, was not going to do this but had to go out for a bit and could not start hot washes but wanted to get on with it.
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Quite a lot of dirt seemed to come out in the cold water, so next up was a hot wash. Hottest water my tap could provide (that is pretty hot, too hot to put hands in) with fairy liquid and soak for about 30 minutes. The water was still hot when I changed it. Lots more dirt, and presumably lanolin, out at this stage.
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I did a second hot soapy soak, followed by a no soap wash and finally one with some vinegar and hair conditioner.

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Then squeezed most of the water out and took it outside to dry. I was going to try spinning it in the washing machine, but decided against it as I am not too convinced about the success of the washing.
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The bits that were generally quite white at the start seem to be cleaner, the more yellowy bits have not changed very much. It also still smells pretty sheepy, although it is still wet so that might be making it smell stronger.
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I am going to let it dry and then have a look through, will be able to pick out the white bits and card those, not sure what to do with the yellowy bits, maybe dog comb them open and try rewashing, if they are really dirt encrusted and smelly (especially if it is wee and poo) I am not too keen to use them, especially as I have a lot of other fleece to play with.

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The next section for processing seems much cleaner to start with. Also from a combination of lessons learnt and more reading online I think I will do several cold water washes, maybe an overnight soak or two to get the dirt out. Then hopefully just one hot wash to remove the lanolin. I was not keen on the amount of hot water I had to use- home processing should surely be helping my pocket and the planet?!