Washing Wool

We are having some beautiful weather this week so I have decided to finish washing the wool fleece that was sheared off of my sheep in March. I washed most of the wool at the end of April when we had a stretch of sunny and breezy days, but it was so tiring and time consuming that I stored some of it until a later date when the weather conditions became perfect again. You really don't want to wash it in the humid weather in the middle of summer because the wool just doesn't dry quickly enough. The process is not that hard and it is so wonderful to have wool from your own sheep to work with.
Of course the first step is to shear the sheep. I do not do this myself. I have a very experienced sheep shearer who has been coming to my farm for the last seven years.

 

Sheep Shearing

 

Next comes the most time consuming task, skirting the fleece (removing a strip of dirty wool all around the edge of the fleece) and removing any dung tags and vegetation- such as hay and bedding in the wool. This process can take hours depending on how dirty the fleece is and how many sheep you have. Many sheep owners put thin coats on their sheep year round to keep the wool clean and free from vegetation. This makes this step much easier. Unfortunately, I do not, so this is a lengthy process.

Once the fleece has been picked through you can begin the washing or scouring process. It is easiest to do this in multiple small batches. The wool is washed in very hot water with dawn dish detergent, changing the water and soap several times until the water looks clean. ( It took me three times.) The worst part of this process was carrying huge buckets of hot water from my house to the backyard. Truly back breaking labor!! A lot of sheep owners wash their fleece in their bathtubs, but I thought what a mess that would be to clean up. The most important thing in this step is to handle the wet wool as little as possible and not to agitate it so that it does not mat up. Also keep the temperature of the water the same with each washing. This also helps to avoid matting.

Washing the Wool

 

The next step is the rinsing which is done the same way as the scouring, just soaking the wool in clear hot water until the water looks clear. It took only two rinsings for me. Then after lifting the wool gently out of the water, I placed my now clean wool on screens to dry. It took two days for the wool to dry, and the results were perfectly clean. The wool that looked dingy and smelled like a barnyard was now so white and smelled so clean!

 

Drying the Wool



                                                                    

I stored all this clean wool away until winter when I will card it. Carding is the process of using two wooden paddles with fine metal teeth in them to comb the wool into usable roving ( clean, smoothly combed wool fibers). I will use the roving for needle felting, but at this point spinners would spin yarn.

Antique

Hand Carders

New Hand Carders

(still basically the same)

 

I am taking a spinning class at the Sheep and Fiber Festival at the Tunbridge Fair grounds the weekend of September 28 and 29, so maybe next year I will spin the wool into yarn also.