Friday, May 27, 2011

Washing and washing and rinsing fleece!!

Hi all!! I've been sooo busy washing my bag of fleece - the one that was dropped off by the local shepherd/ farmer. Has anyone else tackled it yet?? It's been quite an experience. I didn't get to filling a bag till it had been out for a bit , so maybe the first picks were good??? The stuff I have seems to have a nice crimp but was VERY dirty and full of bits of vegetable matter.

Becky - have you done anything yet with the bag of leftovers you and Brigitte hauled away??

I soaked it outside in rainwater for a few days - and changed the water at least once - got some nice brown water to use on my gardens. Hope I get some super tomatoes this year!!

4 comments:

  1. Hi Joan,I haven't gotten to it yet,we had our alpacas sheared on the weekend by Carolyn and her husband and one of the boys was somehow wet so I have been doing his fleece all week singing ba ba black sheep ( because ba ba black alpaca somehow doesn't work and he is a lovely black boy.)
    the bag of fleece strapped down made it easy to find the car in parking lots! not sure if I'll be able to salvage any more as I couldn't bring it into the house and it has been sitting in my leanto, I'll use it for mulch otherwise ,so either way it'll go to good use.

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  2. I'm sure you'll get a nice result out of it, but that's exactly why I didn't grab any. I actually ordered a bunch of fleece from the lady who sent us the amazing coated grey fleece we dyed with! I can't wait to get it delivered! I also picked up some amazing corriedale from the fibre garden.

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  3. I've washed mine and spent an entire day flick carding - so much so I felt like I had carpel flick carder syndrome!! Joan is right, it was full of veggie matter but not too dirty tag-wise. I did it in small batches in the garage and in the dump sink and it has turned out fairly nice. I spent an evening turning it into rolags, as I was happier with those results than spinning it from the lock as it was less nubby but I did wonder about investing in a drumcarder!!! I only had a few really crimpy locks, so I babied them and will spin them up separately as they are quite soft. It has been a process though, not sure if $5.00 fleece is really worth it in the end, might have been better to opt for something softer!

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  4. drum carding isn't really any faster, a common misconception. To get a good result, you have to go quite slow and feed little bits in at a time, and not overload the carder.
    Also, if you like spinning from rolags, you'll either wanna hand card from the batt after it comes off the carder, OR, split it lengthwise into smaller batches and roll up into fake rolags. Plus it won't get VM out.
    They are fun though and amazing for blending.

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