Fleece Auction

Now one of the main reasons, O who am I kidding the main reason I go to the farm show is for the fleece auction. This immediately follows the shawl auction. This year I was able to save up a little money to purchase may be four fleeces depending on the price. This is instead of my normal one or two which I usually get. Well just say I went a little crazy and got seven fleeces, O’ boy that’s a lot of fleece. I always wanted to work with a black fleece and gray fleece. This year I was able to get a black fleece but no gray, on the other hand I did get a cow fleece (a sheep’s fleece that is spotted like a cow). So if nothing else I have a lot of work to do. I have provided picture of the fleeces below for your drooling enjoyment.

Cow fleece.

The purple ribbon fleece is the Grand Champion of the colored fleeces and it's also the black fleece.

Washing Fleece

I have decided to show how I wash my fleece, since a couple of previous tries the wool felted. So this is my way of helping someone who may need help with cleaning there fleece. I will start off that my way does take a while and everyone does do it differently. There is no right or wrong way to do it just the way that best fits you and keeps the wool from felting.

The first think you need to do is skirt the fleece, which means to remove any vegetable matter and dung tags. If there are any second cuts or breakage you want to remove them as well. If you have a dryer you can use that for this step with no heat and on air fluff. If not then you have to do it by hand, I also give the fleece a little shake which helps and you may want to do this out side since it is a dirty job.

This is the first step that I do in washing fleece. I let it soak in cold water with nothing added. Some people say that there is a lot of sweat and silt that only will come out this way. Others say it will come out in the detergent wash. I doo it this way because I feel it gets cleaner and you don't use that much soap since your onlly removeing the lanolin and not the dirt as well. If you feel you don't need to do this step then don't or maybe you have never done this step and should give it a try. While the fleece is in the water cold or hot I never agitate it in any way, all I do is let it soak. This is how I keep it from felting.

Here the fleece is draing from the clear water bath.

Here I have the fleece soaking in hot soapy water. I use hot tap water that is 140 degrees to that I add a tablespoon of Borax and Laundry detergent. I decrease the amount of Borax and detergent each time I change the water. I never agitate the fleece I remove it from the water and let the water drain out, the fleece stays in the water for twenty minutes. This batch of fleece took four baths to get all the lanolin out of it. You keep changing the water till you have soap bubbles left. Then I rinse the fleece in the same manner in clear water and I decrease the temperature of the water to cool the fleece down and the water come out clear. This took about four water changes as well.

This is the nice clean fleece before I placed it in the trays I gently squeezed out the excess water. The goal is to have the fleece to look them same as when you started but clean.

This is the fleece drying to the left is the heat vent not shown. I got these crates a while back from a plant auction you typically see them at Easter time with Tulips and Lily's in them.

This is how I was my fleece if there is any thing that can help you out use it. If you see any improvements let me know. But all in all just have fun with it.

Basket of Fiber

A couple of weeks ago a friend had contacted me to stop by her place to pick up something she had gotten me at an auction. Since schedules where not working out she had dropped what she had for me at my in-laws and I picked it up there. What it turned out to be was a large basket of fiber. She was telling me about it and wasn’t sure what all was there. Her thinking was wool, linen and maybe some cotton singles. Since she doesn’t spin she didn’t really know the difference or how to figure it all out or at least try to.

When I got the basket home and was able to go through it I found what I hoped to be some really cool treasures. The first think that kind of sucked though was nothing was marked. So I have to do some testing and research to figure out what I had. More testing though which I will explain.

I found a lot of wool some very soft and other not good for wearable’s. All of it but one small amount was cleaned and some was even dyed. What it was dyed with I’ll never know at a guess I would say a synthetic dye. Yet it could have been natural who knows. The natural colors were white, charcoal grey and dark brown. The last one I thought may have been Bison since we do have a farm in the valley but examining it closer I believe it to be wool. The last time I had some Bison in my had, there wasn’t any crimp to it and this does, so will go with wool.

Then I found a bag of mixed bags with small amounts of fiber in them. With in that bag I found what I thought to be silk, angora (bunny), and cotton I found some curly locks that I really don’t know what it is and some more wool. The more testing came at this point I wanted to test some of the fiber to make sure they where natural. So to do that I did the burn test, you take a small amount of fiber and burn it. If it smells like burning hair then there is a good chance it is natural. I say good chance because it could be mixed with a synthetic, so a second test it to place it in a strong alkaline. The reason you do this is all the protein fibers will be dissolved by the alkaline in this case bleach. If there is any synthetic fibers in the mix they would not be touch by the bleach. So after letting the fibers set in the bleach I determined that they where real.

So what I believe to have is a lot of wool of different types, some silk since it is a gold color I will guess and say tussah silk, a small amount of cotton. Some angora and I’m stumped on the curly locks, there not very soft so I really not sure where they came from. The final think that was in the basket was a hand made Lazy Kate. Which also had four home made spools, a cone of rug wool and some hand spun yarn. So all in all it was a really cool gift.

Natural dying

On one of the yahoo groups there was a discussion on soaking wood chips in alcohol. As I was reading, it reminded me that I had some wood chips soaking for six months. So I decided to do some test samples to see what I would get if anything from what I had soaking.

What I had soaking was nutmeg, hickory chips, apple wood chips and I remembered I had some mushrooms in the freezer as well. So I decided to do some dye experiments. I don’t remember were I herd or read this but someone uses small baby food jars when sampling. I liked the idea and decided I would try that for my experiments as well.

I did this for all four sample batches.

1 Made a mordant solution of each mordant (a pint of each mordant)

2 Made the dye bath

3 Placed the sample yarn, 1/4c of mordant solution and 3/4c of dye in each jar (one jar for each mordant)

4 Placed each sealed jar in a large pot of hot water (just like you do to process can goods)

5 Left the jars simmer in the water bath for and hour

6 After cooled I let them dry, rinsed, washed, rinsed again and let them dry.


So I had a total of seven jars one with no mordant added, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinegar and washing soda. The dye baths were simmered at 212 degrees and the water bath was at 202 degrees. I like the way this worked out and have decided to use this method again when I have new dye stuff later this year to try out.

The fun stuff that I’m going to try out this year after I get them growing is, henna, amaranth red dye, dyer’s broom, eucalyptus, French marigold, weld, bull’s blood beet. If you take a look below you will see the finished results.

This is Nutmeg from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager.

This is Hickory wood from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.

This is Apple wood from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.

This is Mushroom from left to right no mordant, alum, tin, copper, iron, vinager and washing soda.