Snow day means (wool) wash day

This morning, I decided to use my snow day (at 15 degrees F. and blowing snow - no way was I going outside!) to check out the RDF (Really Dirty Fleece!) that I've been cleaning bit by bit.

I have six bags of cleaned and carded fleece. Each section is a different color.

Mostly gray - black, dark black/brown, dark gray, medium gray and light gray!

The last section of cleaned and carded wool is a nice colored gray but I don't think I'm going to be able to use it with the other colors. It is just the dirtiest section . . .

that what looks like heathered gray is really - VM. Vegetable matter. 

It got to the point today when I looked over what I was cleaning and I just bundled up that section and tossed it. The remaining sections -  dark brown, black and dark gray - were relatively clean so I washed them up and I'll get a final carding session in later this week. I don't really know what I'm going to get yarn-wise but I'm hoping to get something good enough for hats and mittens. 

One of my favorite links that I've gone to over and over this week is Spinning Forth. Ruth MacGregor's great links, videos and articles make me think this nasty old fleece might actually make some fun yarn!

Almost a wool winder!

You may remember that GFMelissa gave me a fleece from Shepherd's Harvest. It was a spur of the moment gift to her from another friend who came to the festival for the first time.

And it was pretty obvious that she was overcome by the festival atmosphere - she bought the fleece off one of the sheep-shearing exhibition sheep. Instead of letting the shearer bundle it up properly with the cut ends outside, she just stuffed it all into a trash bag. Then it rattled around in that plastic bag for a couple of months. So it was pretty beat up and dirty when I pulled it out of the bag on Monday for a little fiber inspection.

Big and dirty. Brown, black and grey all in one package. To start with, I shook the fleece and most of the taggy (read: poo-filled) ends just fell off. I'm sure I sacrificed a lot of good fleece as well but my kitchen just isn't set up for that. The dog really loved that trash bag of poo/vegetable matter, though! Then, I broke the fleece apart into three separate sections where the fleece types seemed to differ.

Working with the sectioned fleece, I pulled it apart on table, pulled out locks and used a dog comb to comb out the ends. I wore a heavy plastic glove on the hand that held the locks because I kept combing my knuckles - ow! I layered netting in the plastic laundry basket and made little sausages of fleece locks  which I then rolled up and tied together.

I tried to keep the color division when I made the fiber sausages. One of the sections was grey/light brown; one dark brown and one very black section with coarse white guard hairs.

This last section was very pretty but very coarse.

All in all, I got cleaned half the total fleece. I didn't get around to photographing the washing process but it involved a lot of soap and water and several rinses. We'll see how it all turns out . . . Mr. Daisy really liked that brown color so I'll have to see how much I have when I'm done washing the whole thing.