Friday, August 8, 2008

"My 1st Experience Washing Raw Fleece....."

I had contacted Joan, in Maine, whom I had received a "sample" of Icelandic Sheep Roving from a few months ago, to buy a raw fleece (meaning straight from the sheep) from her. The fleece she sent, was from Molly, and is absolutely beautiful! It is a very dark wool with various lighter highlights.

Below is my "set up", with all the things required (or so I hoped), to wash my fleece. I used Dawn dish detergent, which I had read on a few of my Yahoo spinning groups, was a good detergent to use for washing fleece. I also had found 2 wire baskets at our local Dollar Store, that I thought would make excellent holders for the fleece, while being dipped in the wash/rinse water. :) You also can see my salad spinner, that I would use to "spin dry" the finished fleece, prior to rolling it in a towel, and then setting it out to air dry. And of course, the timer, to set for a 15 minute soak for the wash part of the process. :)


The raw fleece........


The raw fleece in it's "soaking/wash cycle"......


The washed fleece in the "rinse cycle"......


The washed/rinsed fleece in the salad spinner for it's "spin cycle".


The "spun dry" fleece......


The fleece prior to it being rolled up in a towel to take more moisture from it before it is set out to air dry.


The finished fleece air drying.


More photos to come when I get ready to use it for spinning.......

3 comments:

Maniphone said...

Does Don know what's going on back at home while he's away at work :) You are an amazing man, Michael!

Molly Bee said...

Dude! You are rockin' on this spinning stiff. I don't think I'll get to the raw fleece stage. Too smelly and yucky for me! I'll stick to roving, but the process looks interesting!

Amy said...

Truthfully, that looks really gross.