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Lesson Learned

If you leave a bag of raw sheep fleece in the car all afternoon, be prepared for a particularly ripe odor when you open the door.

I got a large feed bag full of raw fleece today.  It is much softer, crimpier (wavier) and has a shorter staple (hair length) than the fleeces I’ve had before.  I’m hoping that these characteristics will lead to a much softer and less scratchy yarn when it is all said and done.

can't ya smell it??

After work, I poured a nice hot bath, and dumped the whole stinkin’ lot into the tub.  I use a washing liquid (pH 4.5) which maintains the acidity, and is beneficial for the wool.

Something of supreme importance in this whole process is a bathtub drain filter.  This can be picked up at a hardware store, and it will reduce the amount of hair and sticks that go down the drain.

It’s at this point that I wonder if the fleece will ever get completely white, and I wonder if my bathtub will be white again.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 6:29 pm and is filed under knitting, tour de fleece. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Teira

    LOL. I can totally smell it :) The smell is almost tolerable when you know you'll have a big mound of soft squishy fleece to play with. What kind of sheep is it?

  • http://twitter.com/sticksandstring rachel bearse

    I'm not sure what kind of sheep it is. It's kinda strange, as soon as someone knows that you spin, they always know someone who knows someone that has just sheered sheep, and has fleece to give away.

    My plan is to wash and spin some of this and make it into something for the farmer, and maybe then I can visit the sheep and find out more about them.

    Are you joining the tour de fleece this year? It should be fun!