Fleece Washing at WhorlingTides

Much of the holiday weekend was spent washing Cheviot fleece for the Naked Fiber Club. Here's the evidence....Some of the pictures are of the lincoln locks that I washed, too. I purchased the lincoln from Kokovoko - the same folks who make the lovely spindles.





So, as you can see, sometimes I soak the fleece in the bathtub. Look at all that gunk!! My daughter says it always looks like intestines in the tub when I'm scouring fleece. I use very hot water (even raised the temperature on the water heater thermostat) through out. First I soak the fleece to get rid of most of the dirt, lanolin, urine...whatever. The second bath is when I begin adding soap. I use Dawn because if its grease cutting properties. Plus, I like the lavender scent in the one that I use. I never let the water temperature fall below 115 degrees because I don't want the lanolin to reattach itself to the fiber. The fleece will be rinsed with fresh water baths until the water is finally "clean." Only if necessary will I use a second soap bath. Everyone has her/his preferences about how much lanolin should be left on the fiber. I like very little lanolin as I'm not very fond of greasy feeling fingers.

So, here is the Cheviot for the Naked Fiber Club. See the gorgeous lock structure??!! Well, it is a beautiful creamy white color but has a lot of little bits of VM that are about 1/18 - 1/16th of an inch. And man, does it stick to the scales of the fiber! It combs, flicks, and cards out after washing, which is nice. But all of it won't wash out.



I decided that I didn't want to lose the lock structure of the fiber if I could avoid it. So, I did something new that I had read about in Spin-Off...I dipped each lock into some near boiling soapy water, then near boiling water to remove the soap, and then a good rinse in the sink. Check out that process below.

Here are a couple of raw locks from the fleece before scouring...

Here are some locks after scouring using the "dip" method.



And below are some puffy clouds of fleece that I will use to make batts for people who wanted their fleece carded! So pretty!

Now you see what I have been up to with your first fleece!