A wool wash kind of day.

I started out with a bunch of pictures and an open Instagram window and then realized that whatever lengthy post I was going to plug to social media is probably far better served over here on the blog. After all, I’m supposed to be writing more and the TL/DR (too long, didn’t read) crowd will probably be happier anyway.

I’m completely sacked from everything we worked on this weekend, but a new swamp cooler is purring away in the livingroom window and I’m on the couch with my phone writing this post because I can’t be arsed to go find my laptop. In between multiple trips delivering eggs, wool pellets and turkey chicks, helping Adam move a swamp cooler a few times, a brief panicked hike out back looking for sheep that had disappeared (they were hidden in tall grass) some gardening (planted grapes, dug up and moved a giant wormwood plant, weeded a LOT), plus a livingroom defrag cleaning, chores, and a scrubbing and reset of the chick brooder and incubator…oh and laundry - I also washed some wool!

Yeesh. I’m tired from even typing that out.

I’d really meant to get to the wool washing part a lot sooner but didn’t know if I’d have enough propane in the cylinder to heat up 8 gallons of water to scour temps - twice (once to rinse), but resolved that if I had to do smaller batches inside on the stovetop for rinsing I could make it work. As it turns out, I had enough to get it all done outside.

I’ve had a special project in mind - both for the processing challenge but also for how much it would mean to the recipient if I can pull it off. Deb Jones is largely responsible for Patsy’s survival in the early days after her injury, both in her compassionate know-how, but also her gentle persistence of showing up multiple times a day down at the barn, cleaning wounds, applying dressings and fly repellent and many, many prayers - and then caring enough to get her to me where Patsy could have an easier time living out her days on a smaller acreage. Most people would have quit, but not Deb.

Patsy has beautiful wool, but her fleece has a break right in the middle of an almost 4” staple. I know I can spin a short staple, so if I can process by the lock and snip it at the break, I think I could make a nice yarn out of it and knit something up for Deb so she can keep a piece of Patsy with her.

As you can see above, there’s the barest indentation that shows where the wool has a weak spot and if you grab the ends and tug, it comes apart.

So step one has been getting the wool washed.

My standard recipe for scouring lanolin-heavy wool in hard water: 8 gallons heated to 140 degrees, 11 T sodium hexametaphosphate dissolved into it, split into two buckets (4 gallons each) with 2 T power scour and leave it alone except the occasional rotate the bag and push it back under the hot water. While the wool is soaking, I start another batch of water heating and add another round of water softener when it hits 120 degrees. I’ve found on a warm day, the temperature doesn’t really drop below 130 degrees in the bucket for about an hour - and that’s about how long it takes the rinse water to get up to temp.

This time, I had the idea to dunk the coats I pulled off the rams the other day into the used wash water.

Siggy must have had a huge lanolin response post shearing because his coat felt like an oilskin and was black. I had my doubts power scour would get through it and I’d have to resort to dawn dish detergent to strip the oils, but I was pleasantly surprised. Even with the dirty water from Patsy’s fleece, the power scour pulled enough lanolin that I am feeling slightly more rational about it’s eventual trip through the washing machine.

After letting Patsy’s fleece soak in the hot rinse water for half an hour, I pulled the bags and hung them to drain. On a whim, I took about a pound of skirtings off of Douglas and threw them in to soak some of the lanolin off and maybe loosen a little dirt and VM before a serious scour.

So here’s a blorp of Douglas butt fuzz (it’s actually neck wool, but I like the idea of knitting a hat for Adam out of butt fuzz so I can call him a butthead if necessary.

Also - here the slightly-less-wrecked sheep coats.

…and last, but not least, Patsy’s wool. She has some dirty tips, but she was uncoated before she came to me and some of that New Mexico red dirt is hard to break up. I didn’t want to mess with this more than I had to because I want the locks intact enough to see where I need to snip the break. Minuscule dirt should clean up with combing, but the fleece itself feels clean, soft and not stripped. Sorry for the somewhat dark image here - the sun has already set.

I’m leaving everything out to drip dry in the breeze tonight and I’ll post the results to Instagram.

Until next time - be well.