Trying to wash fleece on a good day
Preamble (not about fiber but i promise i will get there!)
Usually, towards the end of June, the local grocery store garden centers close up for the season. It may be that slowly recovering after surgery continues to distort time, since it seems very early to be closing up the plant shopping for the year. Anyways the massive sell off of all the last remaining plants, cheap, is happening now! I got one car load full from one store, including 2 flats of ever-berring strawberries, some lavender (Munstead usually overwinters here) and some more herbs. The next day I went to the local Loblaws and they were closing that day, even better sales! More lavender, herbs Columnar basal and lemon verbena mainly and even a few flowers followed me home. I also bought 5 dead hanging baskets and 2 slightly alive ones for .26 cents each (I am short on hanging baskets). Both my fabulous halls were unloaded onto the side bench and one of the fleece drying racks in the side yard. then it took a couple days to recover before i could start working on them.
0.1) looking down the side yard towards the fleece washing area
I have been puttering along, planting some into pots and Glenn has promised to help with the lavender and strawberrys that will go into the garden. I am also trying to catch up on the weeding, where do they keep popping up from?
I think it was Wednesday, foggy time continues…, we had a warning of possible severe thunderstorms with hail and high wind for 5am. So the evening before, I carefully moved all the hanging baskets I had just planted, down under the bench, under the fleece drying rack and prepped for a horrible storm, that maybe impending.
0.2) two large saucers of plant pots, a mix of flowers, herbs and house plants.
Nothing happened at 5am, but 9am arrived and so did the storm, with heavy rain but no hail. Afterwords I went out to do a bit of weeding. A bit after lunch the blue sky was again gone, and so was my Large Umbrella I had be using while weeding. It had escaped and was trying to figure out how to open the front door. (It is bad luck to have umbrellas open in the house so I closed it and got it back in its weighted base. (Sorry no pictures) oww…. Time to sit or maybe lie down would be better. yes lying down was much better.
(I am getting to the point)
Today, Friday, Ottawa is sunny, no rumors of thunderstorms and my front and back are willing to consider something other than sitting or lying down today, YAY!!! I had asked Glenn to pull out the bins of unwashed fleece from the garage so I can see what I want to wash next.
0.3) My choices from the Garage are 3, all waiting for attention (2 yellow and 1 clear plastic bin, in front of fence and abandoned snow shovels.) I don’t remember what I put in them.
1- First, I Need to set up the fleece washing aria. The tub has some rainwater, a few bits of leaves, dead bugs, Miskito larvae and a moth in it. Maybe a large fish tank net would get the not-water-bits out? Maybe a trip to Dollerama later? the water is still cleaner than the fleece so lets proceed.
1.1) Stock tub, Bits of leaves, Miskito larva and other bugs, and one floating moth.
Next, I should set up the umbrella by the garage. Why is it not working, oh broken stay is interfering with it extending. Got that sorted, and set up the second fleece drying rack again.
1.2) fighting with umbrella with broken strut. With the broken arm it fits perfectly between the garage and the back of the house.
now that i have that sorted i’m sure it will all go fine from here!
2-Select a fleece, this is like Christmas, i cant remember what i put in there so its all new and exciting surprises!
2.1) Option 1: white-ish fleece in plastic bag inside clear plastic bin.
2.2) Option 2: White-ish fleece in black garbage bag inside yellow Ruff tote bin.
2.3) Option 3: creamy white with lots of crimp. Loose in the ruff tote and has some bits of lavender on top of it.
Option 3 wins. I am going with the last one, It looks like quite a big fleece. after looking all through the side yard, I seem to only have 4 fleece staining buckets? I hope it didn’t blow away, no found it, Glenn stuck stuff in it. ….. OK, I will try washing 4 at a time rather than 5.
2.4) 4 strainer baskets on drying rack with fleece in tub in back ground, pole from umbrella in foreground.
Ok fleece selected, no skirting table available but i am sure this will be fine. i just have to add water, soap to the Stock Tank and dirty fleece in strainer baskets to start soaking, i will have this done by lunch!
3- Drat, The hose is up by the front door, but I cant get the hose back here until I put away the recycling box. There are still a couple hanging baskets, hiding under the bench in the way (where i need to put the recycling box). So, move the baskets first. Found the hooks to hang up the baskets, and got them up out of the way. Oh no back just did that cold running water down the back feeling, got to sit down now for a moment. I have to make room for the blue chair so first put the recycling box away. Ahhh that’s better. While I’m sitting here i can see the drying rack in the side yard. There are still a couple hanging baskets, under the drying rack, better put them up too. And sit again.
3.1) hanging baskets, pots of plants waiting to be planted , wooden bench, recycling bins below, and big garden thermometer
4- Right I am sitting looking at the drying rack covered in plants. That won’t work out well, i will need that space for the fleece soon…. need to move and organize all the little plants in pots I purchased. I have 4 saucers and a shallow bin partly full of plants but give me a moment and let me get the strawberries all in one, the plants that will be house plants and the last of the inpatients are in one. i found 2 more saucers (ok they are oil change black saucers but they work) one is now full of Lavender and the other is a mix of herbs. And back to sitting. (i feel like i’m am doing some odd form of and English country dance but in stead of “everyone turns around” after doing anything, i do something followed by “i sit down”. i miss dancing, the Black nag was fun and i miss the Manshaft pavan, the 8 count reverrance was deadly! i must stop thinking about medieval dances and get back to work!)
4.1) Oil draining saucers full of herbs and lavender sitting on green bin and garbage can
5-Lets move the hose I think that was what I was working towards. Ok, dragged it back and have the tank filling. Where is the soap?….. did it fall off the end of the bench? Maybe under it? behind the spin dryer? In the spin dryer? No sign of it, better go in and call glenn. And sit for a bit. Maybe I will look by the kitchen sink first, but why would it be there?
6-Found the fleece washing dish soap in the kitchen…. Ok took it back outside. It’s the sheep-washing dish soap, not the dish-washing dish soap, they are totaly different! so it should be outside with the fleece washing stuff.
6.1) sunlight Dish washing soap also cuts lanolin and removes dirt from sheeps’ wool. (yellow plastic bottle of dish soap sitting on 4X4 beside stock tank with hose going into tank behind it.)
7- Tipped the big ruff tote partly out onto the drying rack and picked through clumps looking for second cuts, excessive Vegi-matter or the extra smelly dark bits I don’t want to deal with. this fleece has little second cuts with kemp, I found a small section with less crimp but since I cant see the hole fleece I am not sure where it was growing or if its some one else’s fleece that got mixed in accidentally.
7.1) dirty wool cascading out of yellow plastic bin.
8-Picked over good raw fleece got dropped in a strainer bucket, while the rejected bits got dumped on the lid. I did not fill them quite as much as last wash since I will have to do more bins than last fleece. I wonder if this one was a ram? or just a much bigger sheep?
8.1) the rejected bits I tossed on the lid until I can get them into a yard wast bag. There are a lot of odd little seeds stuck in spots in the fleece so I don’t want to add whatever that is to the garden.
8.2) OK my aim is not 100% accurate I will clean that up tomorrow, I hope.
9-As the strainer bin got to about ¾ full I added it to the stock tank to start the soak. When I had all four in the tank I added a bit more water, gently lifted and lowered the strainer baskets a few times. I will now let it sit and soak. I should put all the icky parts in the yard waste bag but I think it would be better to go in and sit and maybe write a blog post.
9.1) starting the soap water soak I left it in just over 3 hours.
10- I want to give it a few hours of soaking then start the first rinse in case there is rain tomorrow. The water is definitely needing changing and the strainers baskets are hanging to drip.
Lets take a peek at this crimp in the raw wool. It is quite a dirty sheep, but not as much Vege-matter as I was expecting. As I said there is definitely a bit of kemp in odd sposts in this fleece (mostly second cuts), but I think it will still be nice.
10.1)closes up of crimp
10.2) pulling sections of fleece. I don’t have room to spread out the hole fleece so I am pulling out sections and looking over that bit. (yellow large plastic tote with unwashed fleece spilling out onto drying rack.
10.3) strainer baskets coming out of wash water
10.4) Dirty water but I think we can get this fleece cleaner.
While we are back here lets take a peek at the blackberries and see if they are ready yet, almost!
11.1) Blackberrys along the back of the house lots of berrys ripening
11.2) close up of blackberrys and blackberry flowers
The trumpet vine is flowering again too!
11.3) Trumpet vine
11.4) Scarlet runner bean flowers
It always takes longer now than i think, to get anything done. i did not get this done before lunch, i acutaly forgot about lunch and kept puttering along. now that i have this much blog post written, its dark out, but the fleece should be drained by now. back wiling, i can finish draining the stock tank and give it a rinse before refilling it and starting the first rinse. wish me luck avoiding the masketos.
I hope you are taking advantage of these lovely sunny days, to have fun with fiber; prepping it, felting, spinning or weaveing with it.
1) LITTLE GIANT 75 Gallon Black Poly Stock Tank, SKU: 9281205, In Stock Online, 4 available for In Store $129.99
2.1) The stock tank sitting on 3 4X4s on top of the metal bench. Connected to the drain is a hose extender, then the tap valve and the old hose to send the water down the driveway.
3.1) Cupcake is a BFL X Romney fleece, which was 6.4lbs. 
3.2) Too many suds, I guess the fleece is about to have a bubble bath instead of scouring.
3.3) 5 bins just fit in this size!
3.4) The soap (not Detergent) helps with wetting the fibre as well as releasing the dirt. Look at all the fabulous colours in this fleece
3.5) A good soaking and suds-be-gone, so time to get out of the bath.
3.6) Look at the dark brown colour of the soap wash water as fleece-filled strainer buckets are coming out. That sheep was dirtier than it looked!
3.7) Rinse #1 refilling stock tank to the first ledge.
3.8) Rinse #1, after the strainer baskets have been removed, inside the stock tank, the water is getting closer to clean!
3.91-3.92) End of rinse #2. And resting the strainer bucket on the side of the rim to drain most of the water out before hanging it up to finish dripping.
4.1) This is an RV washer/spin dryer.
4.2) just like a giant salad spinner (but I don’t advise it for clothes or salad after all the fleeces it’s been washing.
5.1) the small forge, Sears-Roebuck light duty farm forge and the bigger forge under the large black cover.
5.2) The green bucket is handy to move the fleece to the drying racks.
5.3) The plastic owl takes his job of guarding the wool seriously.
5.4) Two buckets on the right drying rack, and one on the Left. The plastic owl is still supervising. I hope it keeps the evil chipmunk from “Helping”. He will be eating all my blackberries shortly!
5.5) This is part of the blackberries along the house, and one of Glenn’s blacksmith footed vices under the blue tarp. It could be a very good crop of blackberries (which will make up for the rabbit cutting all the canes off at about a foot for the raspberries.
5.6) Moved drying racks under cover to avoid the rain.
5.7-5.8) I still have one strainer basket to put out to dry.
5.9) The last strainer basket waiting for space on the drying racks.
7.1-7.2) Washed locks of BFL X Romni. The locks are very soft and crimpy. Unstretched, the locks range up to 3.5 inches