Prepping A Fleece From Start To Finish - day 1, washing

I have some fleeces in my clostand today I'm working with Prime Lincoln sheep.  This has been untouched from the time it was shorn so of course it's full of bits and bobs of grass and dirt and other things that sheep roll in or walk through.  It still has its curl in it, and looks a right mess, but in its own way there is beauty.

As you can see it looks like there are some grey locks.  This is a white fleece, so that's not the color of the fleece that's dirt. Small sticks, bits of bracken, and grass and seed, lay tangled in the fleece, as well. All of that needs to be gotten rid of before I can go on to the next step of the process.
The next step is to fill the sink full with soapy water, I use cheap dollar store dish soap, it works well at lifting out the dirt, because I'm not going to agitate it at all.  Agitating will cause the wool to felt, and I don't want that. I'm going to be spinning this up.  I keep the water warm and then gently plunge the locks in and leave to soak, I ensure that all the locks are covered in water.

Almost immediately there is a brown tinge to the water as the fleece soaks.    After about half an hour I remove the locks to a large bowl.  I carefull pick them up and allow the water to drain out.  I avoid the desire to ring to squeeze, to otherwise felt the wool.  The water now looks like this:

It's pretty gross, and the wool is still dirty,  I give it a rinse soak, this one is short, about 5 minutes or so.  And then it's time to remove the wool, very carefully again, like I did the last time and it's going to soak in suds again, for another half hour.

As you can see the water is less brown, and only a bit of detritus remains, but it's still pretty murky, so I fill the sink with more suds.  The wool isn't clean yet, by a long shot; however, it is looking better. More white, less grey.  We're getting close and now onto the third rinse.

I keep the water roughly the same temperature for each rinse.  It's important not to shock the wool and could possibly mat it and felt it.  This could take a while, but it's worth it in the end.  My last fleece, Angora Goat, which is also known as mohair, took 5 soaks in the kitchen sink.  I like to use the kitchen sink as it's just the right size for the amount I'm washing and it's easy to scour it up and disinfect it after.  I don't like to  use plastic because it is porous.  Hard to clean, hard to keep clean and I don't want to cross contaminate fleeces when I wash them.  Now it's time to let the soak do it's job and remove more dirt.  Another half hour wait.

As you can see each wash becomes less murky.

The fleece becomes more clean.
It's a slow process and my batteries have just died on my camera, so I'll keep you up to date on how many soaks and rinses there has been.  I'm putting it in the last soapy rinse.  I don't want to remove every last shred of lanolin in the wool.  I just want it clean.  It's soaking for another half hour and then it will be clear water rinses until the water runs clear.  I'm not worried about getting all the detritus out of the fleece, that will come later in the picking and fluffing/teasing part.  Ah but I get ahead of myself.
The water is not nearly so murky after the third soapy rinse, and the next 3clear rinses were much quicker.  The water is much more clear, not murky, just a little dirty.  I let each of these successive rinse sit for about 5 minutes.

The next step is something I do to get the water out.  I put it in a mesh laundrey bag, like you would use for washing nylons, or fine washables. and I hang it over the faucet in the bathtub until no more water is runing out.  I don't like to squeeze, I can't emphasize that enough.

After the water stops running out of the bottom, I give a very light squeeze to the bag, yes now you squeeze, just to make sure the water, which will have pooled at the bottom of the bag, is removed.  Now for the towel.  Like when you hand wash a wool sweater, you put the fleece in a towel.  And then you press down on the towel to soak up as much residual water as possible.

The next step is the final one for the wash aspect.  You hang to dry.  I find a nice shady spot and hope for clouds.  I like it to air dry as much as possible, outside.  It still has a lot of stuff in it, but that's ok, because you will be picking that stuff out later. Tthis way works best for me.  I hang the towel as well.  It's the one I always use for wool and I keep it separate.  As you can see, the wool is much cleaner than when we started and it can be dyed or spun then dyed or kept pristine.
I put a day aside for washing.  In total there were 3 soapy washes, 5 clear rinses.  What I have discovered is that working with fleece is a slow process from getting the fleece to the finished product.  You slowly and carefully wash wool, clean it, spin or felt it, dye it, turn it into an item whether you knit, weave, crochet.  You take your time and are rewarded with something that will last a long time, keep you warm and you can proudly say you made it from start to finish.  It is especially exciting when the product you are processing is locally sourced, as mine was.
I like this process, it just takes a little planning and knowing you will be home for the day.

A Few Thoughts About Jumping Right In There

I've been busy, really busy, doing things I was not quite prepared for because I have a tendency to jump right in with both feet.  Well I did it this time.  I got so far ahead of myself that I spread myself too thin.  I looked around the room and saw all the things that needed to be done and several projects that I had started because it seemed like a good idea at the time and I ended up overwhelmed.  So today has been spent tidying up a bit and I see my dpn's all over the place not nicely together so they don't get lost.  I managed to get the loom put away and the spinning wheel stowed in the corner until I"m reogranized again.  It was fun playing with toys and new items and seeing what I knew and what I didn't, but now it's time to put things away so I can use them when I need them.  I am facing the fact that if I don't do this now, things will start getting lost.  You see I suspect one of my knitting needles has slipped down into the bottom of the couch... eeep, and there are balls of wool everywhere.  I'm also feeling confused and have no focus.  I suspect that I stopped myself just in time, before I was faced with someone else stepping in and taking over, which would be horrible and unfair for them, as well as myself.

I think it's time to do some writing.  I want to get all my patterns down on paper.  I want to know what I have and what I need.  I want to get some studying done.  I pulled out my loom and having to put it away because I'm just not that sure of what I"m doing yet was a real eye opener.  I'm also looking at the table loom and seeing it needs me to do a thorough going over and a clean.  Next couple of days are going to see a rash of re-organizing and stowing things back into the cupboard.  One of these days I'll have a studio with a kitchenette and a daybed, but until then I share a small space with my son.

All in all, I'm feeling overwhelmed, and  not knowing which direction to go in or what project to handle next (usually not a problem).  I feel stuck, so I'm reading a wonderful book all about spinning, dyeing and weaving.  There is information on the tools I need and how everything works.  I think taking a step back and getting reorganized will get my brain flowing and if not.. well there was one good thing that came out of this... while my mind was getting all scatter brained, I was gifted with a wonderful idea for a story.  I've not written any fiction in quite a while and I have a wonderful premise in mind.  Maybe I'll take a small hiatus and work on some writing.  At least the creative flow is working. :D

A Spinning Wheel

Lately, I've been working on socks.  The same pattern, but different yarns.  As I venture deeper into the realms of textiles, knitting and spinning, I discover nuances I never knew existed.  The green pair of socks are knit up from the wool that I dyed in the green koolaid.  They came out beautifully and I love the softness of this pair. The blue pair I knit up next.  This wool was spun and dyed by a friend of mine and it was done "in the grease" which means the wool was picked clean, but spun with the lanolin still in the wool, and not washed out.  There was a bit of a stickiness to it, which I compensated for by keeping talcolm powder close by and each time my hands became sticky, I put a small amount of the powder in my hand and rubbed it in to my hands to absorb the surplus and knit more freely.

From this project I learned that you have to keep track of every stitch and take your time when you knit socks up.  I also perfected my kitchener stitch, and as you can see the toes have a lovely professional look about them.  It was worth the extra effort to really take my time and learn it well.  For all the previous mistakes I've made making socks, I have to say I've learnt so much.  As well noting down every single row and what it was, keeps you on track and I even develloped my own code so I would know each step that was coming up, how far along I was and that just kept things easy and fun.  Instead of sitting down and trying to get the project all done at once, I divide it up into jobs.  The cuff, the leg, the heel flap, turning the heel, the foot, and the toe, each become a seperate section and after completion of each section I take a break.  I go slowly and don't think about what I've already done and how much more I have to go, and what comes next.  It just takes away from the enjoyment of it and tends to create mistakes.  I just focus on the section I'm working on and it all works well.  I ended up unraveling my lovely lavender socks and have already started making a new pair out of them with the correct tension, (Hint: keep things tight) and the correct size.  I'm almost finished the first one and already it looks so much better.

I had some excitement yesterday, when a dear friend came over with some goodies for me.  A few rubber stamps to make cards with, some spool knitters, a little vintage fabric some other things, including nom-noms, but most importantly and happily a spinning wheel.  It's tiny, which suits this place perfectly This is the side of it, so you can't see the wheel, but you can see the arm that goes up and down turning the wheel, and you can see the bobbin and flywheel on the spinner.  As you can tell it has a triangular shape to it and is very compact.

Here you can see the wheel and the treadle, which you pump up and down to make the wheel go round and round, twisting up the fiber and drawing in the yarn and winding it on the bobbin.  It's pretty amazing the way it works.

It took me a while to get how it all worked.  My foot did not quite grasp how to get the wheel to go in the right direction at first.  As well the early tension was difficult and all over the place. Thick and thin, and it looked unwieldy.  I also suffer from performance anxiety, which manifests itself whenever I'm watched doing something, no matter how well I know someone, I just don't perform well.  Oddly enough as soon as my teacher and dear friend left, I decided to give it one more try instead of waiting until today to play with it, and low and behold it came to me, easily.  In fact, in no time I was spinning away and loving every second of it.  It's so peaceful and mesmerizing when you can just get into sitting at the wheel and working on creating pretty little bobbins full of fiber. :D

So yesterday was the best day I've had in a long time.  While my friend was here, we went for a walk in the park and had a yummy meal together, we talked and laughed, we spent time spinning... ok ok I was learning ... but we did get to spin together, which is something we both had wanted to do for a long time... Next time I think we're taking the wheels to the park... I should mention, I have the same wheel as my friend and they are sisters, much like my kick spindle has a sister.  I feel blessed to have such good friends and the opportunity to spend time with them.

The Busy Bee

Over the last few days, I have been working on creating more wool for me to create items from.  I've done some dyeing, which I outlined in my last blog, and then I did some spinning on my kick spindle and have designed and completed a pair of summery fingerless mitts.

As you can see, I've spun up 3 balls of wool the pale lavender, which I created by diluting the Grape Koolaid.  The ball on the mitts, still needs to be plyed, but it is the palest of the lot, and will create some beautiful plyed yarn, once I get to that.  I spun the blue wool and it came out quite lovely with a lot of variance in the colors.  I have a lovely selection of colors to choose from and now just have to figure out what to make.  I have to also figure out the weight of the wool, whether it`s worsted, Aran, fingerling and so on, and for that I use a little guide I make out of a card and notching out a one inch space. I don`t know if there is a name for this kind of measure, so I`ll just resort to my favorite word and call it a doohickey for today.  

The writing on the left hand side has the wraps per inch and what it stands for.  To make the doohickey, I just used a recipe card and cut a 3 inch rectangle off it.  Then to make it a little more sturdy I fold it in half.  I mark out an inch in the center and using a pair of scissors cut about 1/4 of an inch down, and fold the ends over.  This I do on the cut end, I now have a 1 inch notch with which to wrap my wool.  To make things quick and easy I always put down the table that converts the W-raps P-er I-nch or WPI to the wool weights we know so well like worsted or Aran.  

Now for the table of weights:

Wool Weight Name                            Wraps Per Inch

Lace *************************18

Fingerling-----------------------------16

Sport*************************14

Double Knit---------------------------13

Worsted***********************12

Aran----------------------------------11

Bulky*************************10

When using the doohickey, you have to push the wool up together on the inch end and make sure there are no spaces.  In the picture it's wrapped loosely to show how it works, however, carefully moving the wool over takes this to 12 WPI, meaning it's a worsted weight, a standard and popular weight.  

I also designed a pair of finger-less mitts, they are quite lovely and summery in a fingerling weight yarn in green.  I had a lot of fun making them and they go part way up the arm,  perfect for those nights when a gets a wee bit chilly and all you have on is a t-shirt.  Their lacy pattern also makes a lovely fashion statement. 

I'm including a close up of the pattern.  I found it difficult to take a picture with one hand so it's a little blurry. This closeup should help.  It's called a fan pattern and it's really lovely on.  It stretches nicely and they are airy, so they don't get to warm when you wear them, yet they do provide a little warmth should it get cool.

Now after all I've been working on, I need to tidy up.  Although productive, it's been a messy few days and it's time for me to get some things ready.  Packages to wrap up, wool to label and put away for another day, A few things to price and perhaps if I can get things done quickly enough I can even have some time to make another pair of tiny little Mary-Janes.

Adventures in Koolaid Dyeing

So there is the culmination of a good mornings work.  I used 4 Koolaid packets to make this rainbow of color.  The colors on the dryer are more vibrant than they appear, it's grey out and warmish, and perfect for drying the wool away from the sun.  It's actually a simple process, so if you're just starting out it's an easy way to go.  

The procedure is basically the same for all the different dyeing's I did.  First I washed the wool/fleece in a little dish soap, and rinsed it carefully, squeezing it out gently because I didn't want to felt the wool.  Then I soaked it in some water for about 10 minutes.  I didn't want it too saturated, I was going for a mottled look.  The next step was to dissolve the Koolaid in a liter of water inside a large pot that I knew I would only use for dyeing.  The Koolaid doesn't need anything since it has enough citric acid in the packet, which acts as the mordant which helps it set so the color doesn't leach out.  Once the Koolaid has been stirred enough so that the crystals are fully dissolved, you can add the wool if it has had a good enough soak and enough water to cover the materials being dyed.  Now put the big ole pot on the stove and crank the heat up on your burner.   Check it every once in a while, you don't want to boil it, but you do want to get it close to a boil.  Now put on the lid and check your dye every 10 minutes or so.  Once the color has leached from the water into the yarn or fleece and is left clear, you can pull it out of the water and into a container for rinsing.  I do this in my kitchen sink matching the water temperature of the tap water to the temperature of the yarn/fleece being rinced so I don't felt the wool, and once the water runs clear you are done dyeing.  Time for drying.  I use a small little round about with pegs attached to hang my items.  I place them in a shady place and allow to dry, squeezing the water out gently as it hits the bottom of the dyed item.

So now that the basics are out of the way, here are the variances I applied to the dyeing.  The first color I used was Koolaid Cherry.  I wanted a full bodied color and so I used only one skein of wool.  I followed the procedure outlined above and then hung to dry.  The color is a nice soft red, not quite pink.

The next color was Koolaid Ice Blue, which I followed the procedure for as stated above, but instead of using prespun yarn I used unspun fleece.  I used a lot of fleece, enough to make about two skeins of yarn, and after the final rinse, I put it in a net bag, then hung the bag of fleece to dry.  I achieved a variety of colors on the fleece from a whisper of blue, almost soft white, carrying through to soft palest blue, to a very pale blue, to blue.  There is a lovely mottled affect on the fleece and when it spins up it should have quite a lot of variance in color.

I then followed up with Lemon-Lime Koolaid, which is a bright green.  However that is not the color I wanted to create.  I wanted a pale grass green.  So I grabbed 3 skeins of wool, 2 of them were wool blends, and the third was 100% wool.  I soaked them for about 5 minutes before I added them to the pot with the dissolved Koolaid.  There is not much dye in there so it does not take long to soak up all the color.  I was rewarded with one skin of pale green wool, and two skeins of mottled very pale green wool blends.

My final batch was with Grape Koolaid.  I did not want bright purple, I wanted lavender, so I went again with using 3 skeins of wool and wool blends and followed the same procedure as for the Lemon-Lime Koolaid.  I was happy with the results and received one offwhite and lavender skein, and one greyish lavender skein of wool blends, and one lovely very colorful mottled lavender skein of wool.

This was a great project and I'm going to do some more dyeing soon, but this should keep me busy for the next few weeks. I have the spring colors I want, well almost... tomorrow I may be delving into yellows with some onion skins and vinegar. :D  We see how the day goes.  For now, I'll have to wait for my beautiful rainbow to dry.