Hello lovely Hive needle workers and makers! I hope you are having a lovely weekend!
It finally is cooling down in northeast Kansas and I even need a sweater in the mornings and evenings. Today the sun is shining and there is a cool breeze in the shade.
Starting this week, I will be processing my raw fleece in preparation for lots of fun projects to make during the cooler months. Since many don’t know how to work with raw fleece, I thought I would show you how I process my wool.
In the photo above you can see the raw fleece in its first soak. By using just the cold water the natural soap on the sheep’s fleece starts the cleaning process. The wool should be soaked for a minimum of 12 hours. Since we had several rainy days in a row, I let mine soak for almost a week. Luckily this isn’t an exact science.
Now in this photo above you can see the wool is getting a shorter second soak in mesh washing bags. I could have soaked my fleece in these bags with the first soak but I honestly forgot.
You don’t need the mesh bags, but they are handy to move the wet fleece from bucket to hot soapy water bath to spinning dryer with the fear of felting. Next time I will start with the bags so I don’t have to divide the wool while it is wet.
My large metal washtub ready for the fleece.
Power Scour for the job. This is a special soap just for washing raw wool.
I just emptied the washtub and am about to put the wool into the spinner. I soaked the wool for about 10 minutes in 130 degree F. You want it hot enough to remove the dirt and oils but to not ruin the fiber.
The spinner does an amazing job of spinning to remove almost all the water from the wool.
Now the wool is sitting on some screens to dry. I need a better set-up in the future but this works just fine for now.
After is is dry I will use a tool called a picker that will open up the locks of fiber. I will try to take a video of me using it in my next post so you can see how it works.
Until then, God bless and be well!
All photos taken by me.
