BYC Spinning Fiber

[peepacheep]

The spinning instructor at Black Sheep put my stash in perspective when she told the class at one point she had 6,000 pounds of fleece, granted she was in the business of selling wool. How are you washing your fleeces? I plan on separating by lock size, wrap them in cloth bundles, and simmer them in Dawn on the stove. Air drying wool is a challenge in my house with 3 cats. Wet wool seems to be a cat magnet. I have a tiny multi shelve green house that the bundles can dry in, if I can keep the chickens out it..... always something.

Thank-you for the info on Fantasy Fiber. They were recommended to me last week by a local processor who is no longer in business. After years of working with wood and glass, animal fiber certainly fills a different tactile and color need. Nothing quite like hand knit socks from hand spun yarn!

 

[Chiramc]

I would like to know how the cloth bundles work our. I usually wash mine in small batches - very warm water and dawn, two rinses - I soak it for a bout an hour so it is a long process. Then I have door screens I spread it out on to dry. Let's the air go through quite well.

 

[ladyrsanti]

I spin!

Okay, resume your cloth bundle discussion. I've never tried it so I can't add anything useful.

 

[peepacheep]

ladysanri! Welcome to the spinning thread! I cleaned an Icelandic fleece a few years ago using the bundle method. The fleece was a dark golden color. After 4 rounds of simmering on the stove top it finished out ivory white. I had no idea it was white when I started. There is a great picture tutorial on Yarn Harlot's blog back in '07. I think it is archived as 'this is how we clean our fleece'. Since the sheared ends will felt ever so lightly it is important to keep them pointing outward. This little tangling is actually help full in keeping them organized before carding.

Chiramc, I like the door screen idea! That would be a big airy surface to get a whole fleece's worth done. I will try your cleaning method on the Lincoln fleece I have. There are some very long staples on that one.

 

[BonneTerreChick]

I have several stackable clothes dryers that I air dry my fleeces on. When I use them I stack an extra one on top so my in house furry friends dont lay and play with the fleece(well at least not nearly as much<grin>, if at all). When I use these the do take up some space, but they are collapsible for storage. They are essentially a square plastic frame with legs that a big piece of nylon netting(like the lingery bags are made of but with a finer mesh). The good thing about them is that if it is nice outside I can put the whole thing outside and bring it back in when the weather changes or night falls.
The best air dry I have really is a broken expandable baby gate. Its two screens of plastic mesh with square wooden frames. There used to be a wooden arm that went across the middle to make it expand and put pressure in a doorway to hold it up, to but that is what broke so it was not longer useable. I just sandwhich as much of my washed fleeced between the two screens as I feel good about. Then I can move it anywhere, near a heat vent, outside in the sun, by the wood stove, etc.
I think the most amazing fleece drying set up I have seen belongs to a lady I know. It was built out of 2x4's and was a stand that went from floor to ceiling. The stand was placed over/around the wood stove. She had it built quite wide so it was no where near the stove. There were multiple frames with mesh screen that were shelved in the stand above the top of the stove(a few feet above the stove). There were runners so she could just take the frames in and out. She has lots of Angora goats and sold yarn, fleece and locks in large quantities, so she processed stuff in large quantities. It would work for form someone who was just processing fleece every once in a while, but it did make my mouth water to see all that fleece drying!
I wash most of my fleeces in my top loading washer. Just let it fill with the hot water, put some Dawn in it, turn the washer off and set the wsher for the spin part at the end of the cycel. Then submerge some dirty fiber in the water, let it soak until the water is just barely warm(so the "grease" doesnt settle back on the fiber), and turn the washer on to spin water out of the fiber(it gets pretty dry). I usually do two Dawn cycles( think its about a 1/4 cup of Dawn) and at least one rinse. I have also used my washer or a salad spinner to spin the water out of fleece I have washed by hand. The only fleeces I dont wash or spin the water out of in the washer are ones that I want to keep the lock formation in for tail spinning. The washer is a lot more time effective me than washing every thing by hand like I used to.
Oh! I just looked back, sorry this is sooo long.....

 

[itsy]

I use both the washing machine and the stove top....depending on the quantity I want to wash/what I'm washing.

As a matter of fact.... I have to go back to the dollar store and pick up more garment bags. When you wash fleece in the washing machine, those netting-like garment bags help keep everything together.

 

[fluffingtonfarm]

I've been lurking for a while but I guess it's time to introduce myself I'm jordan and I've been spinning for about 7 years or so.
Now I have a question. I have a ton of leicester fleeces to wash, my usual method is soaking in cool water until all the dirt is out and then washing w/ power scour in 140 degree water to get the lanolin out but these fleeces are super muddy. Beautiful amazing locks, not a speck of vm, but we're talking fleeces that probably have about a pound or two of mud caked to them. they're weighing in at about 9 lbs each and i'm guessing they should be more around 7. Sooo, I'm thinking my usual method may not be the best idea. Anyone have any suggestions? I've got one soaking right now and we're on the forth water change and it's still filthy, the mud is off of most of the tips and underside and what I can see is so pretty but there's a middle band on every lock of mud and some patches are still holding out on me

 

[peepacheep]

I have been cleaning fleeces in small cloth bundles on the stove top after a long cold water soak. The 2 low heat soapy simmers melt a lot of grease out and the dirt comes out with it. The Jacob fleece I did last week came out great. Started a Romney fleece that has gobs of mud on the tips. Ended up running the first batch through the entire soapy simmer and stove top rinse twice. Next round I will put less fleece in the bundles, might have over packed that first batch. Nice thing about this method is the locks stay nicely organized in the bundles. If keeping the locks well organized is not a priority there are some youtubes on fermenting fleeces as a cleaning process. I understand it is smelly, but heard in a spinning class the fleeces come out clean. Thinking of trying a small bucket with some of this muddy Romney.

 

[ladyrsanti]

I used to turn up the heat on our water heater until it was unbearably hot, give it some time to heat and then fill my old washer with the hot water and soak, soak, soak in mild detergent, with the lid closed. If it didn't do the trick the first time, then I'd run it through again. I'd just make sure the family knew not to use the hot water while I was doing it so they didn't scald themselves and make sure I turned back down when I was finished.

 

[Chiramc]

actually, mud is just dirt, I cannot imagine that temperature would affect it at all. It might speed it up a bit if it were hotter water, but I think that is more an issue with lanolin than it is with the dirt itself. Clothing washed in cold water will come clean - it just takes a bit.