Washing Fleece ala Lizzy B!
As you all so wisely knew long before I did, when Liz and I went out to Black Pines Sheep I of course came home with some fleece. I was reserved though since I do not have a drum carder or combs or even so much as a proper flicker. I bought a 1/2 CVM/Romeldale fleece of about 3 pounds. So, on our way home from lunch and the IWP tour we stopped off at Bed, Bath and Beyond to purchase a salad spinner and some mesh laundry bags. Then Liz gave me a lesson in washing fleeces. Since Myrtle was very generous I got instructed on the differences in washing between Wensleydale and Teeswater versus the CVM/Romeldale. Below are some photos and instructions on how Liz taught me to wash fleece.
First, take the fleece out of the packaging and roll it out flat to double check the skirting and seperate the fleece into batches of similar characteristics if it isn’t uniform. Similar staple lengths and crimp should be together of if you want to sepeate colors. We did this on the kitchen floor on an old bed sheet. It worked quite well.
Take roughly 1-lb of fleece (or 1/3 the size of your mesh laundry bag) put it into your mesh laundry bag and close. Then run one side of your sink full of the hottest water you can get. Place the bag into hot water while filling the other side of the sink with equally hot water. Gently press down until the wool all sinks to the bottom and is all wet. There is no need for soap here yet you are just removing the dust and dirt. Don’t leave it to soak too long or all the dirt will resettle onto the fleece, so pull out by the top of the bag not really getting in contact with the wool and drain the sink. Remove fairly quickly after about 1-2 minutes. Let gravity drain most of the water off and then gently use the pressure of the bag to push a bit more of the dirty water out. Because I have some after effects of a car accident and am a bit weak I’ll often use the side of the sink to help me remove so the water. Place the bag agains the edge and with one hand gently apply pressure straight to the wool. You don’t want to agitate as the hot water has opened the scales on the wool and could cause it to felt. But, don’t be scared of the wool either.
Repeat in the other side of the sink and continue until the water is mostly clear. You may wish to change the orientation of the bag in the water to expose other parts of the fleece to the water.
Once the rinse water is semi-clean and definitely no longer opaque add some mild detergent to the next sink of water. Liz recommends Era Plus. We used Palmolive dish soap because it doesn’t have drying agents like many other dish soaps and we could not readily find Era Plus without a chase around town. If using laundry detergent, choose one without extra brightners or chlorine etc. Continue in the same manner, letting it soak in the soapy water for a few minutes, but don’t let the water cool down too much or the grease and the soap will redeposit on it. I’d say we left it soak in the soapy water for about 4-6 minutes. For cleaner fleeces like these usually 2-3 sinks of soapy water will remove the lanolin and any remaining dirt.
Repeat again with clean water to rinse out the soap. Again this will likely take 2-3 sinks.
When the sink water is free of soap put the wet fleece in your salad spinner and keep running it until you have no water to tip out of the spinner’s bowl. You would flip the fleece over and reposition it for each round in the salad spinner. This fleece took about 3-4 runs through the salad spinner per bag of fleece washed. Then spread the fleece out on drying racks or a bed sheet. I only lined the sweater racks with towels because DH is a little finicky and I was concerned of his being convinced that the racks forever smelled like sheep.
Repeat all these steps until your fleece is all cleaned.
There are many different ways in which to clean a fleece. I prefer doing small batches in the kitchen sink because it is easier on my back. Also, I can be filling the other half of the sink for the next step while I’m completing each step. But if this doesn’t sound like the method for you, one of these might work better…
* ICanSpin.com
* Fuzzy Galore - has really good scientific reasoning for some of the steps
* The Joy of Handspinning
* Divergent Threads
Oh, and one last photo… Check out the difference between the washed (left) and the unwashed fleece…
Happy Washing!
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