I started washing my fleece!! I'm totally faking it, by the way. So, don't try this at home. I have no idea what I'm doing.
The first step, apparently, is to lay the fleece out and inspect it. I'm supposed to remove all the unsuitable parts. Thing is, I'm rather new at this and don't really know what is unsuitable. There was no poo, so that's good! I imagine with time, I'll start to recognize the second cuts (which aren't so great for spinning) and the parts that are too dirty to wash. Right now, I'm just washing it all and hope to learn some stuff as I'm spinning it.
This is two pounds of a fleece from a fine wool mutt sheep:
More on that later too.
It smells fantastic! Like sticky, sweet, dusty sheep. It is perhaps odd that I love the scent of wool. I take this to mean I should own lots of sheep.
Step one...scour fleece to remove lanolin and dirt. After three to four soaks in really hot water + soap, I think my wool is clean. Washed stuff on the left, raw stuff on the right:
I don't know that it's clean. Totally faking it. It still smells a little, and still has a bit of slipperiness to it, so I suspect it's still got some lanolin in it.
I let it dry on a baking cooling rack overnight and then hung it on the line this morning. I love that it's still in the strips the shearer took it off in.
Tonight I'm going to card it. More on that later!
I've also been spinning the colored rovings I got at Hoosier Hills. I experimented with some color blending and decided to stick with solids:
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