Fleece fun

Well, I played hooky with the knitting last night. Didn't pick it up once. However, I did play with other sheepy stuff.

I decided to go ahead and wash all the rest of the fleece from the fleece study that I'm doing. Every time I would open the cedar chest, it smelled like a farm. I really don't want all of my yarn and fiber smelling like the farm, so out it came.

This is what my dining room table looks like now.

And it stinks to high heaven. Smells like wet, stinky sheep fur. Yuck.

Here's what I've learned so far with the fleece study.

1. Most raw fleece is gross. It contains, poop, urine, dirt and various vegetable matter.
2. I used extremely hot water to help melt the grease off of it. That worked best for me. I've read all sorts of stuff about using cold or luke warm water, but the hot did the job. On most of these I had to do three washes and three rinses.
3. I don't like the power scour or fiber wash stuff. The one product that really worked to get the dirt and grease out? Dawn dishwashing detergent.
4. If you are doing a bunch of samples, have more than one lingerie bag handy (I did) so that you can do two at once. Takes forever with just one.
5. Be ready to shoo the cats off the table at least a hundred times. They are incredibly fascinated with wet sheep fur. The dogs prefer the disgusting poo filled fleece. Cats are definitely more intelligent than dogs and that's just more proof of it right there.

I've only spun up two of the fleeces in the study so far. As soon as the samples on the table are dry, they'll go into a labeled gal. size ziplock bag and will be put away until I can get around to carding or combing.

A card came in the study for each type of sample fleece. You are supposed to wash and clean the fleece, card it, spin it, knit a swatch from it and then attach the sample to the card. That's what you're supposed to do. I don't know that I'll do that.

I will spin it up and I will take notes on the cards. But I feel like swatching would be a waste of perfectly good yarn. I will probably use it in some small projects instead. I would rather do the work and have a product to show for all the work I've done. Does that make me a bad student? :)

Wedding Shawl progress and more Fleece Study

The Olympics have been good for the Wedding Shawl. It's forcing me to sit for 3.5 hours every night and work on this thing. When I stopped last night, my right hand felt like jelly. I could barely hold onto the needle. Ibuprofen is my new best friend.

I've put the knitting into overdrive. I've only got about two weeks left to work on it. I really wish I could work on this while the Youngest was awake and about.

Meanwhile, something that I can work on during the day is another fleece sample. This one is Shetland fleece. This time, I put it into a lingerie bag and immersed it (with absolutely no agitation or swirling) into really hot water with some Dawn dishwashing detergent to get the grease out. I left it for 15 minutes then put it into the sink next to it to rinse in hot water for a few minutes.

I then set it out onto a towel and rolled it up and smooshed it (gently) to get the water out. It's now hanging around on the back porch while it dries.

I think this time that I was successful. The last fleece I did had a bunch of felting through it and was a royal pain to card and spin.

Of course, this fleece sample was also much cleaner than the last one.

Fleece Study

I have joined a new Fleece Study. I plan on going to S.A.F.F. in October (on my birthday weekend) and I would like to purchase a fleece when I get there. The problem is, I have no clue what I'm doing when cleaning a fleece and I also don't know what kind I want. So, I joined the study.

It came with everything you see here (except for Widget the cat):

The box arrived damaged and I think one of the fleeces I was supposed to get fell out. I'll contact Linda and see if she can send it to me.

This is kinda spooky for me. I am an absolute newbie at this. I'm used to getting already prepared roving, not raw fleece that still has dirt, vegetable matter and poop in it. The smell isn't too bad. It reminds me of my granddad's farm. Of course if you're citified, you probably won't care for the smell.

I already started soaking one - the Columbia fleece. Right now it's doing an initial soak in some cool water and the water is becoming quite icky.




We'll see if I manage to get this thing clean or if I felt the bejeezus out of it.

I finished fixing the shawl. I'm not incredibly pleased with how it turned out. The tension is way too loose now and it's uneven. I'm hoping that careful blocking will alleviate the problem somewhat. Either way, I'm moving on. I'm already pushing my schedule out the window as it is. Sigh. At least it's a little better better.



I'm planning on going ice skating on Sunday, something that I haven't done in years and the hubby and the Eldest never have. It's a Cub Scout event at a local rink. I'll let you know if I break anything. :)

Have a great weekend!