Washing fleece

My Method of washing my Cotswold fleece:

I thought I had better record the way I have been washing my Cotswold fleece, so I don't forget.  Of course, it seems that once I establish something, I go and change it, anyway, so it may not matter!  I hope someone else can maybe use this info, as well.  It has sort of become a conglomeration of many methods I have researched on line.  Mostyl, I guess it really comes down to the climate you live in and the tools you have at hand:

So here goes:

Fill tub with water from hose 

Add Dawn

Add dirty fleece 

Sometimes I add handfuls the dirty stuff 

Sometimes I staple it; pulling gently and separating locks and putting them in a net bag, lined up next to each other.  (This works well with Merino, not so well with the Cotswold) 

Here it is just put into the tub.
Let that stand for up to a week. (Cover it with some screen or a sheet to avoid the extra leaves that blow into it!  And last time I found a GIANT water roach in it when I poured it out.  GROSS!!!  The chickens were happy to take care of it for me! :) ) 

Here is what it looks like after a week! (Look closely and you can spy the BUG!!)

  

Slowly dump the dirty water out and rinse the fleece. I have a screen I use that is perched up on a horse cleaning stall to dump and rinse. 

I just run the hose gently, and move the hose over the fleece.  This photo is the locks in the net bag, but I do this even when there is no bag and the fleece is just sitting on the screen.  You can watch the water running out of the screen to see when it starts running clear.

Then fill tub again, with hose water and dawn.  (Make sure the dawn doesn't get too frothy, just sort of stir it in after the tub is nearly full.  Put the wet wool back into the tub.  I sort of swish it gently under the water.

Here is where I decided to experiment……

METHOD ONE:

I let it sit in the tub for a few minutes, about 10.  Then I filled my wool pot with warm water and dawn.  I put half the fleece in the pot and set it on the stove at about medium high heat.  ( I tried to do this outside on our grill burner, but I ran out of gas)  I let it slowly warm up until it is just about to boil……well I TRY to catch it before it boils, but I always ALWAYS forget about it so I take it off the stove when I hear the sizzle of the water overflowing onto the burner!  This doesn't seem to harm Cotswold, but I would NOT recommend this if you can help it….try not to boil it!  (Although you have to nearly boil it when you dye it, so……I let the fleece sit in the pot until it cools to room temperature or at least luke warm.

METHOD TWO:

After sitting the wool in the hose-filed tub with dawn again, I rinse it again.  Then back in another tub of water and Dawn.  Let it sit as long as you want.  I let it sit until the other wool boiled, then I rinsed it again.  One more time in a full tub, this time no Dawn.  Let it sit a bit, then rinse it one more time and leave to dry on the screen.  While rinsing you can use your hand to turn it gently and get it evenly rinsed.  I would not squeeze it or anything at this point.  Actually, I took half the wool and ONLY rinsed it and left it on the screen…..then the other half went into the clean tub for 5 minutes, then placed on screen to dry.

The left side did not get the extra rinse in the tub.  I am guessing they will turn out the same.


When the "boiled" wool cools to room temperature, I will dump it onto the screen, then rinse with the hose,  I may put it one more time in a clear water tub, no Dawn, then onto the rack to dry.  I am going to post this now, so I don't forget to....seeing as I don't tend  to BLOG that often!!!  And P.S----I apologize for any weird formatting with this post (like the fact that this text is in blue!) I always forget how to make things be seen the way i see them when I am writing!  I guess I need to do it more often!!!!