I Sudsed Up Some Wool!

Lookee, lookee what I did yesterday!! The sun was shinin' (today? not so much). So I decided to take advantage and bust out with some spring cleanin' of the fibery kind.

Remember the bag of raw locks I bought at an estate sale a few weeks back? This bag, full of lambie locks, Cotswold is the best guess. Seemed like the perfect candidate for a bath. First task was to de-poo ball the locks. I do believe this is my least favorite part about being a yarnie! Also had to remove some thorns & other farm-related detritus. Was kinda relaxing after awhile, though.

1. wash01, 2. wash02, 3. wash04, 4. wash03

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

That first shot, in the upper left, is my "assembly line". Did a hot soapy soak, then a warm soapy soak, and finally a cool vinegar soak to remove any lingering "sheepy" smell (some like it, but I'm not a fan). Each soak was 20 minutes, give or take, & since I'm out of the wool scour I like, I used Ecover, an eco-friendly dish soap. These locks had a minimal amount of lanolin, so I didn't worry much about how hot the water was. I used the round basin I already had (thrifted, of course), and trotted next door to the animal adoption thrift store that is our neighbor in search of a 2nd basin; found the bus tray for $1, which was perfect for the lingerie bags I used to hold batches of locks. Still wanted a round basin, so went to the Ace Hardware next to the thrift & talked them into giving me the big round basin in the photo; it was being used to hold nitrile gloves, not for sale, & just right for my purposes, plus they didn't have anything on offer that was the size I was looking for. So they just gave it to me!

After the locks came out of their baths, they got salad spinnered & then headed to the drying rack you see there, custom-built for me by my talented hubn Cole, where they stayed, drying in the afternoon sun. All told, it was about 5 hours of work for 2lbs. of fiber, and although the results are good, I didn't see any real difference between the batches of locks I babied and the ones at the end that just got thrown in, willy-nilly. So next time I might just go back to the washing machine method, rather than hand washing them.

It was a great day to spend outside, felt like a really productive day, and I can't wait to dye these suckers up! As soon as I hear about my dye order, I'll start thinking about some new colorways. Stay tuned!

Tags: scouring, wool