Counting Sheep...Gonna Wanna Sleep...Bedroom by Moi Critters??

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

'kay, got Jacobs...got hundreds of pounds of fleece now.

Nascor and Regis as yearlings​

Biosecure and I shear my own.

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Got ele shears but prefer the old hand ones...go slow, no heat issues, voila...sheep sans a gorgeous fleece.

Regis...2008

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Coupla years back me and my Hero, we investigated having socks made up. The woollen mill gave you pennies of a discount for providing yer own wool to make them into socks for you...blah on that.

So like now that I need a new mattress...t'was thinking (dangerous indeed). Why not use my OWN raw fleeces, eh? I don't relish all the new fangled additives that are in beds...we spend alot of time sleeping so it needs to be a healthful area...

Emmy checking for sheeps...smells like there should be sheeps??​

So with the hundreds of pounds, raw fleece back since 2003 when we got the Jacobs, my staple is like 5 to 6 inches (even too long in some cases for a commercial mill to handle) and most of my sheep have that next to the skin dreamy you forget it's there kinda fiber. Cloud dreamy sleepiness fiber...wonderful, wonderful wool.

So I bin looking round the web at wool mattresses...

Anyone done that here...I did a quick search of byc (maybe not quite the right forum) and am at a loss. I have joined Shetland list on yahoo but waiting on a reply back. I do not do mugmag, so won't go there, so please don't post any links to that.

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Fur my last bird day (day I was hatched), I got me a new sewing machine...so back doing that thing too after a leave of absence of like 30 years...and looking at the mattress as another doable with a sewing machine once again at my disposal! This one is suppose to be good at sewing thru nine layers of denim...mechanical, not some computerized one that calfs out in a few years...reliable like me even tho some of me parts need upgrading...and crafty too.

I am very excited to get working on this project...here is some links I found...

This one is in French and mine is tres mauvais...but lookit the pics...hmmm...lofty lofty...

http://www.laine-et-compagnie.fr/co...elassage-ou-garnissage-bourrelage-capitonnage:

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Hmm...looks like a tufted couch...like how one treats Naugahyde...

but its got my mind steaming along...this could be DOable...

The bed for the actual mattress, I see suggestions like this below but places like Ikea (nfi) also sell futon type beds and pondering, that they could work rather nicely! My hero could zip this up as he is also a cabinet maker...we could Alaska mill the pine (got lots of pine here even on the place, eh) and air dry it...could be a mattress and a bed that is way too healthy...might live furever, eh. Sleeping on these contraptions.

http://www.shepherdsdream.ca/product-info/product-care/
Quote:

So I am BIG...so I want a king sized mattress (like I currently have had) and want one that is five inches (like a firm mattress and a woollen one on wooden slats seems perfection!).

http://www.holylamborganics.com/collections/organic-mattresses/products/wool-mattress:

So like a king sized wool mattress is posted as worth $2,655.00....yeh, and there is also the scare tactics that some dip their sheep in nasty chemicals (sheep dippity do?) and whilst the wool I have is NOT organic (whoop!), I don't have any worries about nasty contaminated wool. No keds, lice, no foot rot...no need to dip them, eh.

Ewe Barn...or the Sheep Dip Inn with the sign over the entrance that reads, sheep dip out!​

Add in that I abhor the thought of noxious chemicals in commercial mattresses of foam and fire retardants AND the woollen mattresses can be hung out in the sunlight once a year to sanitize, you can restuff them so some wool mattresses are like 50 years and still going on strong!

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I also have four ganders to process (Buff Geese) and thinking feather pillows are not too off the mark either...so yeh, my critters may be able to contribute some healthful additions to the boudoir setup...kewl er what, eh.

Thrilled, impatient and excited...green horn exuberant...mostly jest wanting to see how more self-sufficient one can be...and the gifts the creatures bestow us...well that makes it even more awesome.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[drumstick diva]

I have every confidence in you Tara. If anyone can do it - you CAN!!

 

[Paganrose]

Hello!

I have Sheepies also! I have Icelandics. I like the Idea of using the wool for a mattress. It would compact and felt over time, but it would be very warm. You could always add a feather bed over the top of it also.

This is a pic of my ram and an ewe as yearlings


I also sheer my own and have washed the wool.

There are a few ways to wash wool.

I do mine out doors because wet dirty wool will stink up the house for weeks afterwards. I use a large galvanized tub filled 3/4 full with very hot water, and a small amount of soap evenly dissolved in it. I will take the skirted fleece add it to the hot water and gently push it under with gloves. I will continue to very gently push it back under until it is water logged enough to stay submerged- where I leave it until the water is cooled. I will getly lift the wool onto a screen, while I dump and rinse the tub. I refill the tub again with hot water, and a few squirts of soap and repeat the process. when it has cooled for the second time I place the wool between 2 screens that are elevated to dry.

This link is very similar to how I do it
http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2015/05/tips-washing-raw-wool/


My friend also has Shetland sheep and uses an old top loading washer with no agitation to wash her wool.

 

[Paganrose]

Honestly The wool usually sits in the water until cool because Icelandic is very easily felted in warm water, and because most of my wool goes to hand spinners a little bit of lanolin is actually good in the fiber. (plus Sometimes I just don't get back to it while still warm) The lanolin will rise to the top and you can skim it off before you take the wool out if you have copious amounts of it. I generally try to take the wool out of the first soaking while still warm.

My water out of the tap is set to 120 degrees, but I do usually add a pot of boiling water to it to get it up to around 140. It can definably scald if not careful!

I actually use my own homemade white soap (commercial soaps make me break out) it would be comparable to using castile soap.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Some more wool mattress details...

http://www.wool-bedding.com/how-we-make-wool-bedding.html:

Now to not felt wool...you need to avoid the three felting conditions...heat, moisture and agitation...avoid any one of the ingredients and you avoid felting the wool.

So I can begin washing my Jacob fiber...use 170 degree water...thinking some soap like Dawn (nfi) or maybe better to use Ivory Snow (nfi) or maybe someones gonna bound in here and tell me a real good source of good soap fer washing the wool with. Jacob's don't have alot of lanolin and their handle is soft because of the fiber, not the oils. The oils/lanolin is what gives wool the sheepy smell...I like it, like I like the smell of the outside of a horse (excluding the road apple part, eh).

Wool is naturally fire retardant...so bedding made from wool...well we get that bonus part...naturally!

http://www.iwto.org/wool/factsheet/:

Wool and Flame Resistance:

Wool is lookin' better and better...all the time...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Hmmm...searching out wool and mattresses...

Scottish Blackface sheep...Staple length of 10 to 14 inches and good for mattresses...hmmm....interesting...

:

Hmmm...history of beds...good place to start some thinking on...

http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/bed.htm:
The Mattress
A Short History of Mattress Making tells us that "A typical bed of 1600 in its simplest form was a timber frame with rope or leather supports. The mattress was a 'bag' of soft filling which was most commonly straw and sometimes wool that was covered in plain, cheap fabric.

In the mid 18th century, the cover became made of quality linen or cotton, the mattress cane box was shaped or bordered and the fillings available were natural and plenty, including coconut fibre, cotton, wool and horse hair.

The mattresses also became tufted or buttoned to hold the fillings and cover together and the edges were stitched.

Iron and steel replaced the past timber frames in the late 19th century. The most expensive beds of 1929 were latex rubber mattresses produced by the very successful 'Dunlopillow'. Pocket spring mattresses were also introduced. These were individual springs sewn into linked fabric bags.

So that be that fur now...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:


Whoo...where to get a long needle...tee hee...and learning that stripes on mattresses served more purpose than decorative...tee hee...


http://designandwool.blogspot.ca/2013/04/mattress-making.html

Quote:
I am so getting my head wrapped around this mattress idea and it is looking so doable...kewl...

The thickness of the striped material to cover the wool...the big needle and honking good thick thread...the why & what for of the buttons...am really thinking this is not so difficult.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Some of the issues people are saying about wool mattress, it compacts, felts (hmm...I wonder if that is possible) and gets firmer...you may want to add more wool to get it floofy again...some redo it and recard the wool.

Interesting.


http://www.ehow.com/how_5709069_make-organic-wool-mattress-pads.html:

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Have contacted and got a reply back from a friend that made a wool saddle pad with burlap (not recommended...a rug hooking base would be better) and wool rovings...using a rug hook latcher, she said it took a very long time but the product she made was adequate. Put that on the shelf of potential tidbits in this fiasco I am absorbing and poking up.


This place has an absolute ton of wool crafting items.

http://www.shuttleworks.com/

So gonna go thru and see if any books, maybe a long needle can be bought...just an all round woolly place to go investigate. Heck I could uncover a video on how to make a wool mattress even...but you jest never know!


Contacted Olds College (worked for AB Ag back in 1998 which was in Olds--long commute of 2.5 hours round trip but I know how to go there, eh), in June every year they have a "fibre week" and never gone but e-mailed to see if they have any experts that could even teach me how to process a raw fleece correctly and that would be nifty on a stick even. Having someone that has done a wool mattress would be too much to expect, but hey, got five months to see what they can roust up, eh.

How dreamy cloudish is this??

The more I investigate the wool mattress...the more I wanna see this completed.

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This is the bed I am thinking of acquiring...very perfect for this project...beauty on the storage drawers under the bed... me like it!

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This wooden slatted framework is under it...should work fab to let the wool mattress breath.

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This is some bedding airing...sunlight kills so many things and hanging it all out on the clothes line my Hero made me...fresh air and dreamy...hmmm....fresh from the clothes line is wonderful!



Hand-Made Wool Mattresses in Paris
Heather Stimmler-Hall - August 14, 2010

: ...

Our mattress is worn out. We need a new one, but I’ve been dreading buying a new one. I don’t like the waste of it all: the ignoble dragging of the old mattress to the curb the prospect of sleeping on a brand new construct of toxic foam and fire retardants–or opting for a less toxic but less comfortable futon.

...

in Greece, mattresses are made by local craftsmen, and are stuffed with 100% wool. These mattresses basically last for life. When the wool gets compressed the mattress guys will empty it out, fluff it up, and re-stuff it, adding more wool if necessary. The wool and the cover can be washed, too.

This made so much sense. It was clean, local, ecological. Sensible. Why had I never heard of it before?

Renae said she’d looked around for an American version of this, but could find nothing to suit her, so was considering buying 150 lbs of wool and doing it herself.

...

Turns out the Italians and the French as well as the Greeks are keeping this old bedcraft alive. (I’m not sure who else does this.) I read an article in the Telegraph about a British woman who dragged her beloved wool mattress home from Italy. It’s 45 years old and doing well. When she lived in Italy, she took part in the sensible practice of mattress maintenance:

I get the impression that this maintenance is not annual, but happens as necessary–which may be something like every 5 years. She had some trouble finding a craftsperson in England to re-stuff her mattress (because the art is lost there, too) but after a 30 year search (her mattress becoming perilously thin in the meantime) finally found someone in Wales who was game to try.

...


Here in the U.S. there are retailers who sell wool stuffed mattresses. They are specialty retailers who sell non-allergic, toxin-free alternative bedding. These offerings are expensive. But more frustrating than the money is the fact that the beds just don’t look as good as the French and Italian mattresses I’ve seen (see the links above). The euro mattresses look like proper mattresses: thick, with squared off sides that will hold a sheet well. The allergy mattresses are thin, and look more like futons. Strangely, they are also two-part systems. All the companies I looked at recommended you buy a base mattress, which will be about 5 inches thick, and then a softer wool “topper” — essentially a thinner, less firmly stuffed wool mattress — to make it comfortable. By the time you buy both components for a queen bed you’ll be paying more than $2,000 (Twice as much as the Parisian bed–and I don’t think of Paris as Bargain Central). And this doesn’t include shipping. And no one is going to come to your house to fluff your wool.

So…once again….it’s come to this. I’m considering making my own.

I’ve garnered some clues in my research:

1) The best wool for beds is long staple wool. Some recommended breeds: Texel, Suffolk, Clun Forest, Blanc du Massif Central and Dorset Horn wool.

2) The game Welsh craftsperson who re-stuffed that lady’s 45 year old mattress said she figured out the wool needs to be laid down one layer at a time in the ticking, not actually stuffed. You have to work with the nature of the wool. It took her about 6 hours to fill the mattress.

...

You want someone to do what? Swing on by and fluff up what...and in yer bedroom too...wee doo / wee doo...gettin' a tad racy are weeze?

Here is a step by step on making a COTTON mattress...Florida 1914...

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00084614/00001/1j


Incredibly detailed on a cotton mattress...1965

http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAW960.pdf


Eco living: The mattresses that last 50 years
Sarah Lonsdale learns how a wool-stuffed mattress can outlast internally sprung products by decades, cutting down on waste.
By Sarah Lonsdale - 22 Nov 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...living-The-mattresses-that-last-50-years.html:

There is a photo on this article of a bed...I remember those kinda beds too...the wire ones, you could step into the bed frame and get yerself snared up...I REMEMBER these ... good gack!

Hee hee...and making a mattress of wool...I guess I get to also tout that I ain't filling up the landfills with all that perfectly recyclable stuff, eh. And I thought I might not have anything to use up my Jacob fleeces with...hmm...now I am pondering...got lots but how much is gonna go in the king sized mattress...gotta shear them sheeps again this year...will I be doing this with thoughts of stock piling it go restuff the mattress...ho hum...what FUN!

Sure is getting more and more wonderful - this mattress woolly bully adventure!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Starting to get how to find this relevant info...upholstery. They got stuff I can use for mattress making. The "tufting needles" netted me a whole grouping of neato wins... As with all things, you get in the groove when you begin to get the language used...the areas of relevance are jest a POPPIN' up now!

Cripers...tufting needles...in Quebec...

http://www.mattresstufting.com/needles.html


Needles <shiver>...long ones...six to 18 inches long...yikes!

http://www.diyupholsterysupply.com/555.html


Patterns...how to's from the Nor Carolina Rowley Company

http://www.rowleycompany.com/content/how-to-guides.asp

BEDDING section...

- the round pet bed one...course I like

I've made rawhide sheep rugs but for Emmy and Lacy...I wanted to stuff a dog bed for them...with our own wool... them hundreds of pounds are starting to evaporate quickly eh.

- plus there is some on making pillows AND duvets...kewl.

AWESOME!

Heard back from a lovely lady on my Jacob Sheeper list that she already belongs to BYC and will come by and visit my thread...she's got a buncha clean wool and she too is finding this topic tres interesting! She is thinking of making wool comforters...all relevant...bedding...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada