#fromfleecetoyarn

I like to have the basket already sitting in the tub, that makes it easy to clean up any dirt or VM that falls out in the process. 

Step 2: Rinse. Fill the tub enough to cover the wool in the basket, about a quarter of the way full or 5 gallons in my tub. This can be cold water, it’s just to get as much loose dirt out as possible. The wool has to be gently pressed down into the water to get it wet, often a few times. I let it sit for about 30 minutes, and it can be left overnight since it’s cold water to begin with. 

As you can see, that can be a lot of dirt! Some of the suint (basically sheep sweat) also comes out, and a little lanolin after soaking. I gently swish the basket in the water and press the wool down under the water at least once. Then I lift out the wool and drain the tub.

One of the advantages of the laundry basket is that since it has a flexible frame, I can use it to gently squeeze some of the water out of the wool by just picking up the handles.

At this point, you may choose to do another rinse, but I chose to move on to step 3.

Step 3: Washing. Fill the tub back to the same level with the hottest water you can get from your tap and add detergent. Press the wool gently into the soapy water.

There are special detergents made for washing, or “scouring” raw wool, but I have been using cheap clear shampoo. It does take more shampoo than scouring agent, like about a cup of shampoo as opposed to a quarter cup of the scouring agent. Unicorn Power Scour is one of the more commonly available and recommended. In fact, I just ordered samples of all 3 Unicorn Fibre products for just the cost of shipping to try on the other two fleeces I bought this year, because so many people recommend it. 

Still a lot of dirt! And now the lanolin is starting to come out, too. I let the wool sit in the hot soapy water for at least 15 minutes, then very gently squeeze out some of the water and turn the fleece over and press it back into the water for another 15 minutes before draining the tub again.

Step 4: Second wash, same as the first. Not absolutely necessary for a fleece from a blanketed/jacketed sheep, or one that just isn’t that dirty. But I do two washes every time after having to re-wash an alpaca fleece that didn’t seem dirty at all after the first wash, but was turning my wooden spindle brown. Drain the tub.

Step 5: Rinse out the detergent. I put in a little more water for this rinse, and it should be as hot as you can get it. I soak for at least 15 minutes, squish the wool into the water a few times, and gently swish the basket back and forth a little.

There should be no suds, no grease, and no dirt in the water after this rinse. If there is, you can always add detergent to the water (no draining and refilling for this) and do a third wash cycle, for as many washes as the wool needs.

Step 6: Drying. Drain the tub for the last time. Gently squeeze as much water as possible out of the wool, and let it sit in the empty tub for a while to drip before squeezing out some more water. When the fleece is hopefully just barely dripping, I take the laundry basket full of fleece outside. Lack of indoor drying space is why I only wash fleeces when it will be clear and not too humid for a couple of days in a row. 90%-100% humidity is not very conducive to drying anything!

I let the fleece drip for about 30 minutes with the laundry basket hung on my clothesline post. Then I get out the sheets again, spread one out on the grass by the clothesline, and spread the damp fleece on it as evenly as possible. Air flow is important in letting the fleece dry in a reasonable amount of time, so a drying rack would be best, but I just fold the sheet to cover the wool and turn it over every hour or so. It takes several hours in 80-90 degree F weather and about 70% humidity for the wool to dry.

The fleece doesn’t look too different, but it feels different and of course smells different too. There is some slight felting in the finer belly wool, but nothing a good carding won’t fix!

It includes a big table of reasonable height, an old mattress pad and some old fitted sheets, a comfy chair, and of course a furry assistant. The old sheets go on top of the mattress pad to bundle up the fleece and lug it around after  skirting, and the kid size table to put the bags of wool, my phone, and a nice big insulated cup of iced tea is a bonus.

Step 2: Dump out the fleece and spread it flat so the lock tips are up.

This is a light grey lamb fleece from a yearling. You can see there’s some sun bleaching on the tips and some much darker wool at the legs. It didn’t have much VM (vegetable matter, usually mostly hay), so it only took a minute to pull out the big pieces of that. It had also already been skirted once at shearing, so there weren’t any really messy pieces from the back end to remove either. 

Step 3: Check the cut side of the fleece for VM and second cuts. I do this by rolling the fleece up a little at a time and basically petting the cut ends. 

Second cuts are where the shearer didn’t or couldn’t get right next to the skin with the blade and had to go back over the area. They’re most common around the legs. With a good shearer, there aren’t many and you end up with just a tiny pile of wool that has been cut on both ends, like at left. I save those pieces for the centers of felt balls and stuffing.

Here’s where the old fitted sheets come in handy. 

When the fleece is all rolled up from checking for second cuts, I just roll it so the corner pockets contain the ends of the roll. Then I can just fold the rest of the sheet over the wool and lug it around.

See how greasy my hand is?! Raw lanolin!