Washing lambswool

 As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have lost several kilos of long-stapled wool due to careless washing. I don't think I'm felting it with unnecessary agitation (after all I've washed BFL/ Leicester longwool lambswool with no felting). Rather, I'm soaking and washing it without picking it, so the wool is dense and matted in the hot soapy water. It doesn't wash the mud out very well, not does it dry very well like that, so it's often still slightly damp when it goes into plastic buckets for storage. Six months later I have musty smelling, muddy fleece that doesn't want to be picked and flicked.

Lamsbwool locks before washing

A week ago I bought a lovely soft, white Romney lamb's fleece and was determined not to make the same mistake again. I thought of spinning it all up in the grease, and tried spinning a skein. It spun up well, and washed up nicely, but after washing was still creamy coloured and smelled more sheepy than I really like. I'm used to my skeins being white and clean, and I don't really want to sacrifice that for the sake of skipping a wash.

Moreover, I realise that wool "in the grease" has a shelf life of only a couple of months, before the waxes harden, the fibres stiffen and discolour, and the moths get the munchies. Since I put effort into buying fleeces as soon as possible after shearing for freshness, it seems counterproductive to then let the fleece go rancid and stale in my loft.

Is there a special technique for washing adult or lamb's long-stapled fleeces? I found the blog of one spinner who flicks each lock, then individually sews each one into a mesh bag before washing. Others wash their unpicked locks, half a dozen at a time, in roasting pans. I wanted a method that was unfussy yet reliable.

Theorising that my main mistake in the past had been the compactness of the fibre, not water temperature, type or quantity of detergent used, agitation etc, I decided to separate the fleece into individual locks at the start. This fleece is very open and it is easy to do this. There is also very little mud and vegetable matter, which there was plenty of in the fleeces I'd had problems with.

Fleece in small batches in laundry bags

I divided the locks into two piles, one pile I left unflicked, and the other pile I flicked. Then both piles were split into handfuls, about the volume and weight of a bra, each handful was put into a separate laundry bag, and soaked in cold water. The unflicked locks had an overnight soak, the flicked ones only about 20 - 30 minutes.

Then I boiled the kettle, and made a cup of tea.

Then I boiled the kettle again, and put about 5 litres of too-hot-for-hands water into a plastic trug. I added a 2-second squeeze of Bio-D (unscented, eco-friendly washing-up liquid) to the water, swished it around (ouch!) then put the fleece in.

Then I drank the tea.

Two rinses of equally hot water later, and the water was clear and clean. The fleece went into my laundry spinner to spin, and came out not at all felted.

The unflicked locks after washing

Probably unsurprisingly, the unflicked locks came out with dirt still in the tips, while the flicked locks came out snowy white and shiny, like underwear in a laundry commercial. I need to wait for the locks to dry and flick them for a true comparison (is that dirt going to flick out easily or not?), but I have to say, so far this method of washing flicked locks in small batches to allow plenty of spreading out space looks like a good one.

It uses more hot water than I am used to using, but I don't see there's any way round that. If I was abusing the fleece by washing too much of it at a time, then washing less of it at a time is going to take more of my time and hot water. The kettle doesn't like being boiled repeatedly, and often stops working for five minutes to cool down. I have a tea urn however, and tomorrow I'll get it out and see if that makes the process run more smoothly.

The flicked locks after washing

My main concern now is: how much space is it going to take to store it? Up until now I have squashed and stuffed washed fleece into buckets, at least 1.5 kg in a 40L bucket. Come to think about it, maybe the squashing process itself is to blame for the felting. The BFL / Leicester lambswool that I washed successfully never made it into a bucket. It's been in more or less constant use for sock yarn, so it's been in a pillowcase in the bathroom since June.

I have 3 kg (unwashed weight) of fleece, let's say 2 or 2.5kg after washing. In its compact, unwashed state it wouldn't quite fit into a 40L bucket. I was thinking that after washing it would take up two buckets. But if I store it flicked and washed, how many then? Three? Four? And will it felt in the bucket?

If anyone has any experience they would like to share with me, I would be very grateful. I really don't want to open a bucket in 6 months time and find a musty mess.

Spinning Romney

As part of my January long wool destash, I have dug out a grey Romney ewe fleece I bought last year and am spinning for weaving warp.

This Romney is probably my favourite long wool. It is shiny, it is crimpy, the softest parts are silvery and sweater soft. The medium parts are mid-grey and jacket soft, and the firmest parts are slate grey and rugged (or maybe rug-ish). Unfortunately I didn't wash it very carefully, so a couple of kilos are felty, musty-smelling and muddy. Peg-loom food, in fact. But the rest is fine, and these are big fleeces, so there is a lot of it.

My first Romney shawl. Also looks good on aliens.

The first thing I made from this fleece when I bought it was a shawl. Then I felt silly because, what idiot would make a shawl out of long wool? Shawls are supposed to be gossamer-thin, and soft as thistle down. This shawl has a certain scrunch to its handle. I ended up having to crochet an edge in softer wool because it was a little too rough against my neck.

Still, I love it. It is warm and easy to throw on first thing in the morning. Moreover, it will take a lot of abuse and still stay cheerful. Including being worn by small boys being cybermen and daleks that are feeling a bit chilly. I wouldn't like to see a wedding ring shawl have to struggle for survival in our household.





So now I'm spinning it again, for weaving this time.

Romney locks, before and after flick-carding.

The the locks are four or five inches long and the lock structure is very well defined. The locks look like huge silver shrimp. I could comb them but readers of my blog have seen the size of my home-made combs, and frankly I don't feel  strong enough. So I've been flicking the locks and then spinning from the nose end. It is easy to grab a lock and flick it. You end up with over a gramme of parallel, long fibres per lock, and hardly any waste.Once I have a gorilla tub full, then I spin.

I've been trying to spin the way Sara Lamb advocates in her book and videos, Spining to Weave. I hold the flicked lock in my right hand, and pull gently back, while letting the twist run over my open left hand and into the drafting triangle. It's not easy, I am a natural gripper and tugger. But she says it causes fewer hand problems, and I'm all for not getting arthritis from excessive fibre-tugging.

Romney warps, on a Romney and Leicester peg-loom rug.

Once I have spun up two bobbins, I ply them together, with quite a lot of twist. The skeins certainly won't be hanging straight, and I shall have to wash them and hang them to dry to calm the twist down. (I tought I could skip the washing step when making weaving yarn, but Sara Lamb advises against it, unless you really enjoy fighting with energised yarn while warping).

The resulting yarn is about double knitting thickness, and so strong that I can't snap it by tugging on it with my hands.

The next weaving project is another peg loom rug, using unspun Romney locks (the felted, musty-smelling ones) as weft. When it's done I'll give it a good wash, which will hopefully full it and remove the mud and  must. I hope.

After that, I'm thinking of spinning some weft, either Romney lambswool or White Faced Woodland or maybe some downs wool I have in a bucket up the loft.  That could be dyed heather colours, which might mix well with the silver grey of the warp. I want to to weave a study, warm shawl with it, and take it camping.

My MWAS (Man With A Shed) wants to take us all camping to the Scottish Highlands this year. Bring it on, I say. I need mountain air and North Sea breezes to give my woollen wear a thorough weather testing!

Peg-loom weaving a rug

I have a peg loom. Of course I have a peg loom. My MWOS (Man With Own Shed) has woodworking tools, and bits of dowel are easy to saw up, so I got a peg loom quite early on in my spinning and weaving journey. (I get spinning and weaving tools in the order that he feels like making them, as opposed to the order I need or can use them. Not that I'm complaining.)

I also have crazy amounts of badly washed and therefore badly felted longwool to use up. It sounds like time for a rug.


I tried making a rug some months ago, out of a Zwartbles I was keen to see the back of. The only trouble is, Zwartbles is very reluctant to felt, and as the staple length was about 3", a bit of felting was necessary to keep it all in one piece. It was lovely and fluffy, but it didn't stay in one piece, so it's now insulating the worm bin.

This time, I have taken some advice from my favourite Viking crafter, Linda. Her advice is: pack the wefts together good and tight, then chuck it all in the washing maching on a 40 degree delicates cycle. This I did. It shrunk to about half size, but has formed a pleasant fleecy mat, good for sitting on.

It's not a fireside rug though, which I what I was hoping for. So I put another warp on the peg loom, having made a proper warp chain, on the warping board, for the first time.

Home made warping board.

I co-opted my daughter to pull the locks into strips of roving, while I wove them round the pegs. That makes the operation quick (and fun, because we watched cartoons together while we worked). I can fill the pegs up and empty them twice in a sitting. I figure that, if I fill the pegs up 12 to 16 times, then don't pack the weft together quite so hard before felting, I might get a rug-sized....er, rug. It'll be only about a week's work, which seems crazy fast compared to knitting.

Romney locks on a homespun longwool warp

 

 

So far the warp seems to be holding up to the strain. It's Leicester long wool, two-plied. I think my MWAS must have spun it, judging from all the knots in it (I rarely knot yarn). It was rather under-plied, so I ran it through my wheel again on the slowest whorl, just to be on the safe side. MWAS uses a wheel that he made himself, a Dodec, and while he claims to get on with it just fine, it doesn't really lend itself to precise calculations of twist.

The Dodec II, called the Reydec for musical reasons.

I'll post later with pictures of the finished rug. If it turns out to be a rug. Fingers crossed!

Warps and beads

We had a busy day today. It was our first Certificate of Acheivement in handspinning study group meeting of 2015 and we decided to start as we mean to go on by....er.....doing hardly any spinning.

We played with my new fleece picker (The Claw), the woolcombs and the hackle, all homemade over the Christmas holidays by Mike. We also ate biscuits and cake and Swedish chocoloate sweeties. The woolcombs were pronounced useable but very heavy. the Claw was pronounced awesome, and the biscuits, cake and Swedish sweeties were pronounced very tasty.

Linda showed Mike how to wind and secure a warp chain, a skill that has so far eluded him. Mike has tangled up several warp chains, wasting a lot of wool and getting very grumpy indeed. Linda showed us that it really is surprisingly quick and easy. The trick, it turns out, is in the winding and tying up of the Weaver's Cross.

Winding a linen warp on the homemade board.

Once you have that secured, you just need a few ties along the length of the warp, then you can take it off the warping board and chain it (think crochet chain). Once chained it is compact and tangle-free.

We still don't know how to put the warp chain on the rigid heddle loom. I've looked on YouTube but all the videos for warping rigid heddle looms use the direct warping technique. I've found videos for warping four-shaft table looms. It seems to involve a few more sticks than our loom currently has, and quite a lot of string. Linda couldn't show us that part because we already have a warp on the loom. I guess it'll have to wait until our next study group meeting.

The only bit of proper spinning we managed was a beaded yarn. We threaded some little seed beads onto silk thread, then spun a Shetland single with the beaded silk thread wrapped round it. This gives you a sort of plied yarn, but one of the plies is already plied, so it has zero spin twist, while the other ply has spin twist. It seems to me that it breaks all the rules of spinning.

Silver beads on a silk thread, spun with a Shetland single.

It would look better if the Shetland were blue.I can see that this technique has all sorts of possibilities. Luckily my daughter is a bead hoarder so I have plenty to play with!

A long wool destash

A very Happy and Woolly New Year to One and All!

And time for new Year's Resolutions. Er. Or at least a fleece stocktake and stashbust.

I need a certain reduction in my fleece pile up the loft. You see, I have long wool. Oh Lord, do I have long wool. Last year was my first full year of spinning, and I had it in my head that long wools were the best, finest, most useful wools ever. So I bought long wools. 2 Romney ewe fleeces in January, 2 Leicester long wool fleeces and a Herdwick cross in June. 12 kilogrammes or so of thick, curly, wiry wool.

They are probably very nice fleeces, as these fleeces go. Unfortunately in January I was still wet behind the ears about washing fleece, and after I washed and dried them, so were the Romneys. After 6 months stored up the loft in 40 litre honey buckets, the fleeces were felty and musty smelling. Oh dear. I had spun and knitted myself a shawl from the wool back in March, so I knew that the best bits were very nice. But the rest isn't very nice now.

The Leicester fared better, as the weather was warmer and I was more careful in June. This fleece is probably very suitable for spinning for strong warps. I've even spun some up for crocheting and knitting bags. But it's a bit harsh for clothing. I knitted some up but it causes me terrible sock itch (warning: read this sentence carefully if you are reading it aloud) when worn next to the skin. OK for a jacket maybe, otherwise it's basically rugs.

And the Herdwick. Why did nobody warn me about Herdwick? A lovely fleece, I hasten to add. Shiny, long, wavy locks. It is beautiful. But I can't spin it. Like my husband's hair, it won't be tamed. Spun up, it is harsh and wiry like garden twine. You can't use it for warps, it snarls up in the heddle which then sulks. You woudn't use it for wefts, unless you were weaving a gorilla costume (and even then. no-one would be prepared to wear it. It would probably make a good rug, but I can't think what else to do with it.

Luckily my indefatigable Make Everything (and I do mean everything) Himself husband has made me a couple of peg looms. A few weeks of wrestling with felty long wool fleece and we might have a few serviceable rugs to our credit.

Rugs, rugs....how many rugs can one family use I wonder? One thing's for sure, I know what everyone's getting for Christmas 2015.