Carding and Spinning

Today I finally started carding and spinning my wool, using the spindle that I picked up from my sweetheart yesterday.

To card the wool, I'm using slicker style dog brushes. They use the same type and shape of pins that hand carders have, though I find the bristles softer than hand carders I've seen at pioneer villages in the past. It just means that I have to use a couple more strokes to card the wool.
I found these brushes at the dollar store, and I think they cost 1.50$ each. While they are smaller than the paddles on traditional carders, and I can't card as much wool at a time, I couldn't argue with the price. I priced new hand carders in my area and found them around the 40-70$ range. I'll stick with dog brushes, thanks.




          

Then, I load up one brush with 3-5 locks of wool, cut ends towards the handle. I then brush from the cut ends to the tips until the wool is pretty uniformly fluffy, and evenly distributed between the two brushes.

Next use a scooping motion with the top brush to scoop up all the wool from the other. Now all the wool is on one brush.  I roll the wool off the pins (towards the handle), to make a thick cigar type shape. Now this roll of wool, called a rolag, is ready to be spun. I'll do my best to explain that process in the upcoming posts, but it's tricky to both spin (which takes two hands) and take pictures. I found a great set of instructions here. That might be your best bet for learning to hand spin. I'm new at this myself!

Tada!! Suddenly the fleece is yarn! Thanks for the spindle honey!

And Washing, and Washing...

One half of the fleece is still soaking in a tub in my room. The other half I decided to try the washing machine method with. I have to say it's cleaner than the fleece in the bucket, but it really ought to be given that it's had 8, yes count them 8 washes. It's still kinda poopy, but I've resigned myself to just picking around it, and combing it out once dried. When I soak the finished yarn to set the twist I'll add soap and give it one more wash to get the residues off, but any solid matter is just gonna have to be manually removed at this point.

I think the fleece in the tub is just going to get a couple rinse cycles in the washing machine, spun out well, and then it's on to drying and carding the whole lot.

While I think it's the number of washings and not the method that got the machine fleece cleaner, I must admit that it's far easier on the back to let the machine fill and drain the tub. Spinning the fleece also removes most of the water, far better than I possibly could have by hand.

Washing Wool

Well, dear readers, I have learned some important things when it comes to washing wool. I'm no expert at this, I'm certainly learning as I go. First off, wait until you have the time to thoroughly inspect your fleece and pick out the worst bits. Yep sheep poop dissolves in water, but only up to a certain point. Full bowel movements would take a heck of a lot of washings to get out.

Also, give your fleece some room. I found that with just half a fleece I had to separate it into two buckets so that the water can get all in and around and between the fibers.

I was told that the poop is the easy part, getting the grease out is harder. Horsefeathers. My fleece is turning snow white, except for where there's big clods of poo still. And I wouldn't mind terribly if a bit of the grease did stick around, it feels lovely when working with the wool.

After a Few Baths

Recall that this is how the wool started out looking before it's baths yesterday. Trust me when I say this was one of the cleaner locks

This is how it's looking after draining the first two hot soapy baths. The top fibers were looking downright beautiful, but I flipped the fleece over and the bottom was still really dirty, so it's going to get more hot baths than it bargained for. It probably would have been better if I'd washed less fleece in more tubs. I might get a second tub down today and split the fleece.

Fleeced

Today was my first transaction out of the back of a truck. It's a style of transaction I can see becoming more common in the future. After calling Bert and finding out that yes, he did indeed have some raw wool from his flock kicking around, we agreed to meet at the McDonalds parking lot. He had the foresight to ask what type of vehicle I'd be driving. I should have asked the same of him, but didn't. I sat in the parking lot for an anxious 12 minutes scanning each vehicle in case it might be his, and worried that I'd missed him. Turns out his last customer had been more chatty than usual. His gold toned suv pulled up beside my car, and Bert hopped out with a little smile on his face. I was grinning ear to ear, like a kid in the candy store. He handed me a big clear garbage bag full of fleece.
The fleece ranged from buttery yellow to almost orange. This means that the lamb produced a lot of lanolin, the natural grease produced in the skin that helps move dirt and debris along the hair and away from the skin. Theoretically, the lanolin should have picked up most of the dirt, and once that dissolves in a bath, the fleece should be pretty clean. Of course, there will still be bits of hay and chaff stuck in the fluff, but that apparently comes out when carded.
Bert told me that this wool is from an ewe lamb, and therefore softer and slightly finer than an adult sheep's wool. The lamb who gave me it's coat is a breed called Dorset. They are a pretty common meat breed of sheep, which makes sense because they make most of their income off lamb meat.
I paid the man 25 bones, and drove away, grinning like the cheshire cat with a stinky, greasy bag of fluff in the back seat of my brand new car.

I came home and inspected my fleece a little closer. I was afraid to try to lay it all out flat for fear of spreading bits of fuzz all over my bathroom and making a big mess shortly before having to leave for work. I did however pluck a "lobe" of wool out of the bunch to inspect.

This tells me that the staple length of the wool is about 3.5-4 inches, and the wool has a pretty light, even crimp all the way to the tip. The whitish part closest to my wrist was closest to the lamb's body, and the darker, dirty stuff towards my fingers was the outer ends of the coat. It should end up all being pretty much white.

Next I filled a rubbermaid tub full of hot water with a generous squeeze or three of dawn dish soap. You know, the kind they use on animals in oil spills? It'll help remove the greasy lanolin from the wool, without opening the scales of the wool which would encourage the locks to felt together. At this point, any agitation is a bad idea. Even without opening the scales, it doesn't make much to felt virgin wool.
Notice that I've put the tub on a towel before filling. If the place where you fill it up is not the same place it will sit to soak, a towel helps it slide along the floor. It's very heavy.

At this point, I should mention that you should ask for a general consensus of the people you live with before undertaking this project. Dirty wool is stinky. My tub of wool is NOT allowed to stay in the family bathroom, and I must admit my room smells like a barn. I must also admit that I kinda love that.

Already the wool is taking on more of a "buttered popcorn" colour, and I haven't even dumped out the first batch of water. Fortunately sheep excrement is largely water-soluble, and the poop liquifies and gets poured out with the bath water. A series of 5 baths will literally shine the shit right out of it.

Found: 1 dorset ewe lamb fleece

Picked up a garbage bag full of fleece today from a man named Bert who sells lamb meat at the local farmer's market here in town. I called him this morning, and told him what I was looking for. He told me he had just the thing, it's not quite a full fleece, but there's about 6 lbs of wool, and it's got an average staple length of about 3-4 inches, which I'm told is just about perfect for a new spinner.
I've started washing it, but I'll have to share pictures and instructions later, I'm off to work for the afternoon.

Hand Spinning

Lately I've become interested in learning to hand spin. I've been reading like a fiend on the subject, and I think I've got the general principles down, from washing, to carding and finally spinning. Andrew is putting together a homemade drop spindle for me this week, and next week I'll hopefully be posting a how to article. I've been busy contacting local lamb producers all morning trying to get my hands on some raw wool. I know it's the wrong time of year, but I have to give it a try anyhow! In the mean time I've been playing about with the undercoat that I brush out of my poodle-cross, Taffy. She's rather indignant about the whole process though, I suppose she already looks like a sheep and it's only further embarrassment to use her like one. The puppy-ish little wolfling inside of her cries at being likened to prey. I need some real sheep wool.

Update: Andrew has finished my spindle! Here it is:

Now all I need is a sheep that don't mind giving up a handful or two of fleece in February...