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

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

So thoughts are turning to supplies for the mattress...do I want wooden buttons...and I woke up this morn having an AH HA moment.

Why the heck not make buttons from the Jacob Sheep horns...but do I have enough stashed away to make enough buttons...dunno, shall see but how dang nifty would it be to stuff the mattress with Jacob wool and use Jacob horns for the buttons...that would be over the top perfection. I am thinking, I got six sheep that are all over twelve years of age now...so will pass so I guess if I am patient, I can always remove their horns sans when they are alive...not exactly what I like doing too much but the donations of their horns when they pass on might be a nice parting memento and sure enough, I will be thinking of them each time a button (if I don't file them up nice and well) jabs me in the ribs, eh. Yeh, morbid thoughts but still hilarious!

Jacob girl horns are about the right size

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Rams...not so much


Big ferocious rams eh...



This is what he was begging for...chin scritches...
"A little more to the left please and thank you!"​

On washing the wool...

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Stanley my stainless repurposed therapy tub might have to go revisit his roots...a stainless steel tub that I could use for washing my fleeces in...yeh, he sure can take the heat, eh and he's deep and built for that. Now I have to go figure out what kind of stopper to get...I have no stopper and used some steel wool to plug it up so any micess could not use that as a hole to bother my baby broody birds.


So gonna need to find out what detergents or soaps people are using to clean their wool...yeh, so much fun stuff to figure out...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

AWESOME!

So the tick on the mattress is cotton...8 ounce in one set of instructs. Good to know and got moi thinkin' (dangerous indeedy!)...

So....why not denim...like who amongst us don't have jeans that one could repurpose! I love blue jeans and to be able to recycle my baby blues and my husband's...totally AWESOME!

Denim or canvas...cotton canvass...I have that in the topper for our covered wagon for the Jacobs.

Cotton canvas covers this wagon for the Jacob rams​

So I looked at denim at the fabric store in the city this weekend. I am going to repurpose the blue jeans denim for the sides but thinking it best to run two new strips of denim OR canvas where a person sleeps on the mattress. Not sure a seam would be all that comfy...so that be the plan thus far.


Talked with my Hero and he's all game to make me the bed for this wool mattress. He says for eight hundred dollars, that's alot of wood one may purchase and I would much rather prefer he made the bed. He is a cabinet maker and all and I know he'll do an incredible job on it. I expect this mattress to be one heavy sucker so needs extra reinforcement for sure.

I might even carve up parts of the headboard if he makes it.

My husband brought the pine yolk home (20 feet or so tall?) as a raw log which he dried and then stained,
we had the cedar burl air drying forever...which I carved up and painted the white lettering upon
Jest add some rubber conveyor banding and it's...it's a...
SLING SHOT of a WELCOMING SIGN, eh

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I carved this cedar burl with our surname so doing a headboard up, especially if I can sit back and relax during the summer time to do it, that would work fine. Whoo Hoo...gonna be a snazzley project, eh. So many aspects are just falling into place on this.


http://hwsda.org/

Got a reply back from the person representing Fibre week 2016. I got a lead to contact the Hand Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers of Alberta (HWSDA) simply because the person from Fibre week is unsure which instructor would know about making wool mattresses. I could always book a course on preparing raw wool for working with as I do know that preparation of the wool is an art in itself.


Got another lovely excellent reply from the Jacob list...gonna ask permission to post that person's reply as it is so very interesting. They have a small wool mattress that their family used for 70 years for the kids that their grandmother had made before this person's mother was born. How incredible is that!

So with the addition of homemade Jacob horn buttons, my husband wanting to make the wooden bed, me carving a headboard, the repurposing of denim blue jeans as part of the tick, another lead on some woolly experts, and this first hand account of using a wool mattress...over the top for me this Monday.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[CanuckBock]

More links...


http://www.soilassociation.org/orga...5/rhiannon-rowley-of-abaca-in-carmarthenshire:

:

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http://abacaorganic.co.uk/product/newgale/:
Newgale

£2,043.00–£5,268.00

The Abaca Newgale organic wool mattress is made using a traditional Italian technique.

Masses of washed and carded long staple wool is carefully hand layered inside a cotton cover, then a sturdy edge is created by hand stitching.

Hand tufting ensures that the wool remains in place.

An organic wool mattress is cool in the summer and warm in winter. They are widely made and used in Italy where the sun shines a little more than it does here in the UK! The skill required to make wool mattresses has been handed down through generations, and we are very proud of the team who produce them here at Abaca.

Certified as organic by the Soil Association

Sizes - Super King
£5,268.00

More learnin'...more doing cost comparisons...more and more happy I have this wealthy stock piled Jacob fibre!

More reasons to make me own, eh!

Quote: More incentives to make me own king sized wool mattress...

Over ten grand, eh and not priced it to shipped to Canuckville in that amount, eh.

Yee haw...feeling worth it totally?

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

I have received permission from this lovely lady with experience having a family made wool mattress...

Here is what she kindly wrote.


Very helpful indeed!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[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.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Awesome! Love the pic of your Icelandics!

May 18 2012​

This is a pic of my ruminants, few years back...first day out & about on the new spring grass...they were all pronking...(hopping along like deer do) so happy to be eating the greens! I recall my young ewe Mia pronking with such enthusiasm that day...she got going sideways and finally decided she must stop when she was facing back the way she had just come --silly girls indeed!

I read what you wrote and then of course, I had to go to the link you provided...and it answered two of the questions I had...you said "where I leave it until the water is cooled." And I was concerned that the lanolin or grease would RE-deposit itself...obviously you let it sit for the half hour as your link says...and then the lanolin does not just recoat the fleece you are washing.

http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2015/05/tips-washing-raw-wool/:
Second question that I was gonna ask you, was what kinda soap you used but the instructs in your link say "Dawn" (nfi) which I kinda figured would be a good soap since they use it to wash up the rescue petroleum coated sealife after an oil spill...gotta be good at getting rid of gucky grease and yet kind.


Never thought about wearing rubber gloves but dang, if you had hot water (120F/49C melts lanolin, so should be hotter than that!), you would want to be protecting yerself from burns.


Fur a sorting table...I have my heart set on my Hero making me a hardware cloth (three feet wide is the wire width...so will double it with a nice 2x4 support running the middle so I can fasten the wire tight to that) sorting table.

http://www.cps.gov.on.ca/english/sh4000/sh4552.htm
This link above has files you download on how to build this sorting table.​

I worked for Alberta Ag on maternity coverage for ten months back in 1998...they had a wooden sorting table for fleeces you could get the plans for...but since I wanna have the sorting table do double duty (be a table to sort a raw fleece on for skirting it and getting rid of any nasties PLUS be a place to lay a washed fleece out on for a few days), the wooden one is not so handy dandy as a hardware clothed one...I figure at least.

Hardware cloth on the Pheasant Cabin...it is easy to fasten with a drywall screw and a washer on the head​

I seen an image for a round table for mohair (goats) and lots of thicker wired ones stood on two sawhorses. I have an expanded wire one for gravel, you toss a shovel full of gravel and the smaller bits fall thru, but I don't like how wide the gaps are and how rough the metal is. I think one could find the fleece torn to pieces sticking to the wire if it is not smoothish. Hardware cloth pour moi!

The Custom Woolen Mill uses a "centrifuge" to spin to get the excess water out before drying.

I took this pic and believe the centrifuge is the round stainless thing on the right of center in the pic
but I could be delusional, eh. Tee hee! ​

I am OK with the laying it out on a sorting table and leaving it for a few days. Gets busy here and I can imagine, wash a fleece, take it out and rinse several times...then lay on table...I would be happy to go about doing something or other for a few days AFTER the fact. Tee hee...forced to pay attention to the many to-do's...oh my!


Thank you once again for sharing how you wash your own wool and if you do decide to do up a wool mattress...please share the experience with us here...photos of some of the process would be just grand too if you can manage that also.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[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:

OK...thanks for the clarification.

Now Jacobs don't have much lanolin either...not a greasy fiber (tho I gotta quit referring to it as grease!). I am hesitant to get rid of it all too...but I do not think sleeping on a mattress that smells like a sheep (personally like the smell, reminds me that horses skin smells too, jest different than sheeps!). So I gotta get a balance going on where I still enjoy the benefits from some lanolin, but not sheep STINK! That term "nose blind" comes to mind, eh.

Hey now, if you can skim off the lanolin...here's a kewl recipe fer yah...

:

I always knew it had insect repellant properties...but this one clinches it.

:
- A woolen undersheet on your bed will eliminate dust mites, as they can’t survive in the natural lanolin of the wool.

- A woolen blanket can also help you sleep better. Tests have shown that the heart rate under a wool-filled comforter was significantly lower 100% of the time and the humidity next to the skin was shown to be significantly lower 71% of the time.

Oh my...AND you use your own SOAP too...I was just last week thinking about my fav Gran (wicked woman before her time...she kept underground chooks in a shed in the city...totally against the bylaws but that be my Gran! Complimented her HUGE flower and veg gardens on a turn of the century lot) and the lovely lye soap she would make...and how disappointed I was that I never did learn how to make lye soap from her. I do have on bar in storage...maybe that be what I held on to it special for.

You jest HAD to remind me of my woeful ways, eh. Hee hee...castile soap...well there's a tidbit I gotta go investigate further. Thank you ever so muchly!

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Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[Paganrose]

As for the scent- my experience has been that when the hot water melts the lanolin in the wool, the dirt, poo, sweat, musk, and bacteria that live off them and cause the sheep odor, are dissolved into the water. the lanolin then has a very mild scent, and any deposited back onto the wool is beneficial.

My fleeces never get enough lanolin to bother saving it, but that recipe looks fun!

I do a lot of historical reenactment/living history- wool was a big thing- for fire protection, warmth , and moisture wicking properties

Yeah I taught myself how to make soap from lye when I realized I was allergic to SLS and Lavender. It just makes it so much easier than dealing with itchy hives.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Oh my...birds of a feather...flock together!

In school, know I would have been voted most likely to live in a teepee and crochet doileys for it, eh! That and grow the wheat (non-GMO of course!), harvest and ground to flour (I am admitting, I am gonna grow a corn that makes an awesome flour...but probably be more like cornmeal and for biscuits!) for the bread I would bake in an oven in the side of a hill. Blah on that projection...got me a bread maker, so gotten way too lazy with modern conveniences!

So instead of picking your brain and making life too complicated...what you think of this one from Mother Earth News (nfi)? Would explain to me how my city dwelling Gran (but chook keeping gansta) could make lye soap.

Let's Make Some Soap: A Simple Recipe for Lye Soap
2/26/2011 10:12:43 PM
By Sherry Leverich Tucker

http://www.motherearthnews.com/home...some-soap-a-recipe-for-a-simple-lye-soap.aspx:
And I know jest the theme for the soap...got a bar of this in the main bathroom.

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And jest the dawg TEAM for donations...

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Skanky girls...hee hee...OK...how far off topic can I fall...heavens to mercatroid!

So wool is the only natural fibre proven scientifically to generate heat when water (moisture, perspiration or sweat if your huMAN enough to admit you do that) is added to it ... yer imagination was not getting to you when you figured the wool socks kept your feet warmer, eh!

Some more rah rah rah about wool...

http://www.bing.com/search?q=scientific+study+on+wool+heat&go=Submit+Query&qs=bs&form=QBRE#:

So...

Why don't sheep shrink in the rain?

Got me a small turkey to stuff in the oven so I better get crackin'...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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