Raw Fleece

[Onemagicmummy]

i got my mits on some raw, fresh of the sheep wensleydale longwool fleece today

i likes it. :

pics are on my blog. http://yarnspaghettifortea.blogspot.com/

the Farm Dude also gave me a freebie too, and said i can have some Lambs wool fresh of the lamb in june. he may even donate it as i am going to be (hopefully) using it for a Green project i am planning.

:::

Kiz

[kundemama]

Beautiful curls! I would love to see your creation. What project are you planning?

[Onemagicmummy]

i plan on trying to use the free one to make longies/soakers for the baby as its absolutly soft adn dripping with lanolin so i am going to wash it jsut to get the dirty out.

i have no idea with teh wensleydale, maybe a jumper for DH as its the only way i can have enought yarn with out spening a fortune! and he doesnt mine the scratchyness of wool.

i will keep my blog up to date with teh entire process. feel free to follow along, i am going to be washing some of it today to card/spin when its dry

Kiz

[senke]

Tell me more!

I would LOVE to hear more about how you are preparing your raw wool. We just got a sheep's worth of raw wool, and we primarily plan to use it to spin and use for soakers, so we want to keep lanolin (it's "greasewool", so it's got lots of lanolin). It is dirty, though, especially at the butt end. We're trying to figure out the best way to wash it to clean it out a bit without totally stripping it of the lanolin. Any suggestions? My husband is experimenting with part of it in hot water with some dish soap, and that seems to help quite a bit with cleaning the wool (which soaking in cold water didn't), but will this remove too much lanolin? Any advice would be appreciated!

[Onemagicmummy]

i have found that a cold water rinse, hot wash with dish soap/baby shampoo/ hot wash no soap/ and rinsing with slightly cooler water getrs the dirt out and leves a fair bit of lanolin in.

i will make it a point to get some pictoral instructions done next week. what type of fleece did you get?

kiz

[flapjack]

senke, if you have a bathtub then drop it in there after the family has finished, leave it overnight, then spin the excess water out in the washing machine. Being honest, though, you may find that it's easier to discard the really skanky bits around the edge of the fleece: if the shearer isn't used to the demands of spinners on fleeces, then they may not have skirted properly. Saying that, I've been spinning in the grease a lot recently (with a long draw) and that's been a lot of fun and very satisfying, so in your shoes I wouldn't necessarily even bother washing.