Fin.

The socks for school?

Finished.

Washing Fleece

A continuation of

“Why I love being homeschooled: Reason 1386″

or the Wool Series #2

When you shear a sheep, the fleece is usually full of bits of grass, twigs, manure, dust, and lanolin (greasy sheep sweat). Although some people like to spin the wool before washing (called “spinning in the grease”) because the wool is softer to work with, I decided to wash my wool before spinning.

Wool is touchy. It matts (felts) really easily, so you must wash it carefully. For wool to felt it requires: heat, liquid, and friction. If you wash it in very hot water with soap, but don’t swish it or squeeze it or run water through it, it won’t felt. So I filled the bathtub with the hottest water my hands could stand (that’s pretty hot), and added about a 1/2 cup of laundry detergent (liquid, with no bleach or scent or anything) to the water.

I then placed the bit of wool I was washing (I’m doing it in small batches) into a delicates laundry bag. (Yes, that’s my bedroom floor. Looong story…)

Next I placed the fleece in the water, submerging it carefully. The bathtub is clean…just old.

I soaked it like this for half an hour. This is what it looked like then:

Diiirty! I took it out, refilled the tub (no soap this time), and placed it back in for a 15 min soak to rinse it out.

The water was clearer this time, but I wound up washing it again and rinsing it again. All in all, it took an hour and a half to clean the fleece.

First rinse:

Second wash:

Second rinse:

The water was clear this time, so it didn’t need a third wash and rinse.

I took it out of the bag, and laid it on some old clean cloth diapers to dry. In good weather I should dry it outside, but it was rainy and I don’t trust my siblings not to touch it…so I dried it on top of my dresser. The picture’s a bit blurry–sorry!–but here’s the wool drying:

After drying, I start to card the wool…but that’s the next fiber post!

Skirting | Washing | Carding | Spinning | Knitting

Fleece

Or “Why I Love Being Homeschooled: Reason #1,386″

For my end-of the year 40-hour project for my humanities class, I am taking a sheep’s fleece, washing, carding, spinning, and knitting it into a clothing item using pre-Civil War methods and patterns…or as close to that as I can get it.

I’ll be posting about this project here for a while, with pictures illustrating each step. For those of you who could care less, I’ll be translating everything into simple, small words and will also post on other things to keep (my very small) readership happy.

On Friday, I picked up my fleece from the sweet lady in our church who gave it to me. It’s a Border Leicester/Cheviot fleece. Translation: It’s not the finest quality Merino, but it’s pretty and soft and easy to work with.

The same day (with a little help from a brother and a crowd of gawking siblings) I skirted the fleece. Translation: I trimmed off the matted/filthy parts–the ones that couldn’t be used for anything. The process was tricky for me, because I’m still not sure how to tell what can/can’t be salvaged. However, I think I got a good feel of what I can use, and the rest will be for experimentation.

We spread out the fleece on our trampoline to skirt it. It’s huge; it would cover a twin-sized bed easily. Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised at how chocolately brown Boomer’s fleece was! My friend had said that Boomer was her brown sheep, but it didn’t register how brown it would be…and isn’t it gorgeous!

I then took some scissors and trimmed off the waste wool. Here’s the pile we threw away (the color’s off–sorry! It’s a much warmer color than that.) I only pitched about two pounds worth :

and here’s the bag full I kept–nearly 12 lbs! (Again, the color’s too pale.) :

Here’s a better picture of an individual lock–you can see how it changes from gold, to black, to brown. It’s gorgeous!

This will be fun…I love being homeschooled!

Skirting | Washing | Carding | Spinning | Knitting