Ok you did nothing wrong with your process but there is a couple things that will make this easier. Once you skirt your fleece , break it up into 4 sections for easier scouring. Make sure you fill your tub before you add the wool even when you add soap , fill the tub , add the soap , add the wool. There is always going to be stuff in perfectly clean wool. If your gut says it needs another wash , you can do back to back soap and if your gut says it needs an extra rinse go ahead and do it. The flicker dog brushes are exactly the same as carding brushes. Oh an the big round herb dryer hanging things are something I have seen people use to dry wool.
The bright yellow areas are "canary stained". Basically bacteria on the fleece interacts with the lanolin and humidity causing it to stain the fleece yellow. A bit like how a white undershirt can get yellow armpit stains. I like to go through my fleeces in batches and I pull them out with a large strainer in the bottom of my wash bin, which helps reduce the risk of felting. You're doing great! My first fleece adventure was a 17 micron merino with a ridiculous amount of VM. I felted most of it in the scouring, then had an awful time trying to get the VM out of what I could salvage. Many lessons learned and growth since then. Just takes time and practice :)
According to my grandfather, there was a step between washing and carding called "teasing" that was just picking through the washed and dried wool to remove vegetable matter nd other things you didn't want in the fonished yarn. I have a commercial mill wool I'm working with and I regularly have to stop and pick plant matter out as I am knitting.
"You should never put that down your drains." For those of us who have zero outside space that's the only place to put it. I've scoured several fleeces and been in my apartment for years without an issue. Learning is a process and sweating over it isn't worth the stress in my opinion. I love Ryland myself. I also suggest watching a video of older rural women washing fleece. They break every rule we're told about now days. 😂 You did a great job. I highly recommend getting a ninja spinner and second getting an herb dryer as well as those laundry bags. It'll make things easier.
Your blue and white reindeer sweater is from “Scandinavian Sweaters” by Kajsa Lindqvist and Natalie Hebert, published in 1946 by Nomis Yarn Company. Your sweater is called “Reindeer and Pine Trees”. I bought my copy when my daughter was little, back in the 1980s!
The blue ink marks are usually for one of two things, marking a ewe that’s in lamb, or if they’re free roamed across a mountain that isn’t fenced, it can be used to distinguish who’s sheep belong to who! Some mountains have different farmers that own the land, and because of the terrain they can’t fence their property off, so they use different colours of paint to figure out which sheep belong to each farmer!
I started processing fleeces with mesh laundry bags but I stopped using them. Everything on the outside got washed, the wool in the middle didn't wash as well. I figured I overstuffed the bags, so I did some more with less wool in them, but I could only do super small batches which took forever and I had the feeling I was using way more water this way. So I just stuck segments of the fleece in a tub where the water could equally spread around all the fiber, and I was very happy with that. I've also started picking over fleeces very carefully before I wash them, so I only have to wash the bits that I actually want in my yarn:) I think you just need to go through a lot of fleeces to find a process that works for you and the specific fleece. That takes so much experience. I've done 4 fleeces, and I'm just barely beginning to find my process as described above.
I am very much susceptible to 'paralysis by analysis'. I deal with it in a similar way where I set up the situation where I am ok with learning through problem solving and potential imperfections. Quite frankly, problem solving is my favorite part, and I often lose interest when it becomes too easy. I am an odd person, I know. Great progress today, and looking forward to the next update.
This series lined up so well with my current read! A short history of the world according to sheep by Sally Coulthard! only half way through but i think you will LOVE it!
You’re fine on your mulching! It’s mostly important that the plants don’t warm back up too quickly in the spring and become susceptible to re-freeze damage.
You're doing great. My first fleece was also a ryeland, and it was such a good one to start with. It's lovely, fine, and soft, but most of all it's so forgiving - a kind fleece. I don't have a lot of space for drying, so I ended up washing it in small sections. I've tried both carding and combing, and was surprised both work really well. I didn't think combing would work as well due to the shorter staple length, but it did! So excited to see your progress! ❤
My drying rack is pvc pipe and plastic pest fencing…zipped tied. It’s super easy to break down and put away. It cost me $0 as I had everything at home. 🌈🌈🦋🦋
In Laura Ingalls's Farmer Boy there's a scene in which Almanzo's family wash their sheep in a river before shearing them - I liked picturing the sheep going from dingy to white and fluffy, all the dirty suds floating downstream
Perhaps drawing the fleece over the brush would be easier than drawing the brush over the fleece. I remember seeing people do that at a living history museum -- they'd take a chunk of fleece and slap it down over one of the carding combs and the pull it through the tines.
MellyKnits has a great scouring video to make you feel more confident for next time. It is so much work to do this, very ambitious! Also you could try just spinning from the cloud and see how that goes😊
Power scour will help cut the grease. Cold soak first then 180 degrees water to soak until clean. I think it’s a process that 1/3 fleece makes easier to work with and svour
Im exactly like you! I get so overwhelmed by my inexperience that i freeze and don't get started for ages and then just dive straight in 😅. Well, its a method i suppose! I don't know anything about processing fleece but it looks like you're doing very well and learning a lot. Hand processing may take a long time but it looks very satisfying to touch that beautiful fleece - i can't believe how fluffy it got ❤ Best of luck with the rest of the processing 🍀
I am from Gotland!! I love to see the Gotland sheep spreading around the world! Normally me and my family get 16 of the Gute rams over for summer grazeing, those ones do have magnificent horns though. You are doing great!
The yellow is probably canary stains...there's a bacterial process with lanolin if it's stored for too long, which is why many people recommend at minimum scouring before storage
MijnWolden has a lot of videos on preparing fleeces and spinning wool, and having fun with different fiber shenanigans, I wholeheartedly recommend checking out her channel!
Trish from Fiber Love Diary is the one who taught me how to process fleece and gave me enough courage to try it for myself :) I also love Jente from MijnWolden :)
For scouring, I really recommend the soap Unicorn Power Scour! It smells really good and it is soooo good at scouring. There’s some great blog articles about it too 😊
I am just finishing up scouring my first fleece. It was a messy job. I ended up laying it out on my ironing board to dry. It has air flow above and beneath. I bought hand carders - Ashford sells a learn to spin kit with a few bits of fibre, some hand carders, and a spindle.
If you wanted to comb the fleece, you could have dispensed with pulling all the lock structure apart. There is no way to realign all the fibres now for combing, but your clouds are now ready to card or spin from the cloud.
She can still comb the clouds, if she wants. The prep won't be true worsted, more semi-woolen, still a lovely prep after dizzing off the combs though. Makes lovely yarn.
when i was a kid, my grandma never bothered with washing the whole thing , she just separate things and wash it in small chunks. a after that it was just dried it and pulled it apart, like fluffing it. and after that she just used spindle to make thread. not sure if thats how its done now
The tutorials I've seen of using a flick brush have used a protective covering for the leg and then flicked the fleece against their knee (disclaimer -I've done a lot of research into this but haven't personally tried it). This might be a safer way of using the brush as it allows for greater control/more space between the brush and your fingers. Two layers of denim (e.g. an old leg from a pair of jeans) seems to be a popular choice for leg protection while doing this. Also, if you prepare the fleece in this way you can spin it directly from having flicked the fleece - which is why I was looking into it as I'm on a very tight budget & can't afford the carding combs.
I'm currently knitting with 19 micron Merino wool. It's not super commercial but it's the same base that a lot of independent dyers have been using this past season in Argentina. I can promise you that by the end of my sweater I'll have a tub worth of little pieces of dried grass. I have a pair of tweezers by my side and I'm plucking like 3 pieces of straw on every row. I'm knitting fingering weight so it's A LOT. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't worry too much about the vegetal matter, it's gonna be there anyway.
My mom's neighbor in Germany processes fleeces all the time and has been doing it for years. She soaks them in an old outdoor bathtub and actually uses a Kärcher (pressure washer) as one of the steps. It's been a while, but this fact I do remember because I didn't believe it until I actually saw it and was astounded that this didn't felt the fleece. I believe she only uses cold water, but can't be sure of this.
I learned to o that apron n is a necessity!!! I’m going through try the striker bucket next for processing my fleece. Seems to be a problem solver I. Cleaning and draining
At my agricultural college, we give the rams marking harnesses and change the color every week that they are with the ewes so that we know approximately when each ewe was bred. We have an intensive management system and only a few rams, so we use the markings a little differently than a lot of farmers with a different system.
The results are definitely worth the work! If i can ask what is the name of the song that was used for this video? Ive been searching for it on Epidemic and i just cannot find it. Thank you so much!! ❤
To some extent. Combing is the best way to get rid of vegetable matter in a fleece, though some people prefer carded preps and some fleeces are really better suited for cards (shorter fleeces, in particular). Cards tend to break up the VM into smaller bits.
I am sorry you drew blood, but number one rule of working and preparing fleece is to make sure you're up to date on your tetanus shot, so definitely double check that before you keep going 😁. Enjoying the craftmas
I got metal mesh baskets from ikea to put the wool in. Then I can lift it undistubed from the wash bin, dump the water and create a fresh wash. Smelly business though.
Raw fleece is very stinky, it takes quite a few washes to get the sheep smell out of it. Even before I started processing raw fleece and was only using milled wool for spinning my house stank of sheep. That being said, some people actually love the smell.
@@ellaisplottingI heard that's true of the 'ultra' products too. Enzymatic cleaners attack protein structure. So if you have to use them, only ten minutes and pull fibers out. Right?
@@robinr6399 I have used it for particularly filthy and stinky fleece, but never for more than a 15 minute soak. Unfortunately, it doesn't remove the canary stain at all (the bright yellow patches). I've tried on a few fleeces.
#1 rule to processing raw fleece.....make sure your tetanus vaccination is upto date. Otherwise there's no right or wrong way. Do what works for you. I've learnt on free or cheap raw wool. That way I have no guilt.
Ok you did nothing wrong with your process but there is a couple things that will make this easier. Once you skirt your fleece , break it up into 4 sections for easier scouring. Make sure you fill your tub before you add the wool even when you add soap , fill the tub , add the soap , add the wool. There is always going to be stuff in perfectly clean wool. If your gut says it needs another wash , you can do back to back soap and if your gut says it needs an extra rinse go ahead and do it. The flicker dog brushes are exactly the same as carding brushes. Oh an the big round herb dryer hanging things are something I have seen people use to dry wool.
The bright yellow areas are "canary stained". Basically bacteria on the fleece interacts with the lanolin and humidity causing it to stain the fleece yellow. A bit like how a white undershirt can get yellow armpit stains. I like to go through my fleeces in batches and I pull them out with a large strainer in the bottom of my wash bin, which helps reduce the risk of felting. You're doing great! My first fleece adventure was a 17 micron merino with a ridiculous amount of VM. I felted most of it in the scouring, then had an awful time trying to get the VM out of what I could salvage. Many lessons learned and growth since then. Just takes time and practice :)
According to my grandfather, there was a step between washing and carding called "teasing" that was just picking through the washed and dried wool to remove vegetable matter nd other things you didn't want in the fonished yarn. I have a commercial mill wool I'm working with and I regularly have to stop and pick plant matter out as I am knitting.
"You should never put that down your drains."
For those of us who have zero outside space that's the only place to put it. I've scoured several fleeces and been in my apartment for years without an issue.
Learning is a process and sweating over it isn't worth the stress in my opinion. I love Ryland myself. I also suggest watching a video of older rural women washing fleece. They break every rule we're told about now days. 😂
You did a great job. I highly recommend getting a ninja spinner and second getting an herb dryer as well as those laundry bags. It'll make things easier.
Your blue and white reindeer sweater is from “Scandinavian Sweaters” by Kajsa Lindqvist and Natalie Hebert, published in 1946 by Nomis Yarn Company. Your sweater is called “Reindeer and Pine Trees”. I bought my copy when my daughter was little, back in the 1980s!
The blue ink marks are usually for one of two things, marking a ewe that’s in lamb, or if they’re free roamed across a mountain that isn’t fenced, it can be used to distinguish who’s sheep belong to who! Some mountains have different farmers that own the land, and because of the terrain they can’t fence their property off, so they use different colours of paint to figure out which sheep belong to each farmer!
I started processing fleeces with mesh laundry bags but I stopped using them. Everything on the outside got washed, the wool in the middle didn't wash as well. I figured I overstuffed the bags, so I did some more with less wool in them, but I could only do super small batches which took forever and I had the feeling I was using way more water this way.
So I just stuck segments of the fleece in a tub where the water could equally spread around all the fiber, and I was very happy with that.
I've also started picking over fleeces very carefully before I wash them, so I only have to wash the bits that I actually want in my yarn:)
I think you just need to go through a lot of fleeces to find a process that works for you and the specific fleece. That takes so much experience. I've done 4 fleeces, and I'm just barely beginning to find my process as described above.
Woooo!!! Craftmas is back!! Lovely to see your spinning journey with all it's ups and downs.
I am very much susceptible to 'paralysis by analysis'. I deal with it in a similar way where I set up the situation where I am ok with learning through problem solving and potential imperfections. Quite frankly, problem solving is my favorite part, and I often lose interest when it becomes too easy. I am an odd person, I know. Great progress today, and looking forward to the next update.
Me too! As soon as it becomes easy, my brain decides any idiot could do it 😂
This series lined up so well with my current read! A short history of the world according to sheep by Sally Coulthard! only half way through but i think you will LOVE it!
You’re fine on your mulching! It’s mostly important that the plants don’t warm back up too quickly in the spring and become susceptible to re-freeze damage.
You're doing great. My first fleece was also a ryeland, and it was such a good one to start with. It's lovely, fine, and soft, but most of all it's so forgiving - a kind fleece. I don't have a lot of space for drying, so I ended up washing it in small sections. I've tried both carding and combing, and was surprised both work really well. I didn't think combing would work as well due to the shorter staple length, but it did! So excited to see your progress! ❤
My drying rack is pvc pipe and plastic pest fencing…zipped tied. It’s super easy to break down and put away. It cost me $0 as I had everything at home. 🌈🌈🦋🦋
In Laura Ingalls's Farmer Boy there's a scene in which Almanzo's family wash their sheep in a river before shearing them - I liked picturing the sheep going from dingy to white and fluffy, all the dirty suds floating downstream
WOW! Amazing the change. This is a really interesting process and I'm very much enjoying that you're sharing. Thank you. You made clouds!
Perhaps drawing the fleece over the brush would be easier than drawing the brush over the fleece. I remember seeing people do that at a living history museum -- they'd take a chunk of fleece and slap it down over one of the carding combs and the pull it through the tines.
MellyKnits has a great scouring video to make you feel more confident for next time. It is so much work to do this, very ambitious! Also you could try just spinning from the cloud and see how that goes😊
Power scour will help cut the grease.
Cold soak first then 180 degrees water to soak until clean.
I think it’s a process that 1/3 fleece makes easier to work with and svour
I often assume I did a good job on scouring my fleeces until I put them in my drum carder and turn my desk into a sand(and seed/dirt) pit xD
Same! Lol
Im exactly like you! I get so overwhelmed by my inexperience that i freeze and don't get started for ages and then just dive straight in 😅. Well, its a method i suppose!
I don't know anything about processing fleece but it looks like you're doing very well and learning a lot. Hand processing may take a long time but it looks very satisfying to touch that beautiful fleece - i can't believe how fluffy it got ❤
Best of luck with the rest of the processing 🍀
I am from Gotland!! I love to see the Gotland sheep spreading around the world! Normally me and my family get 16 of the Gute rams over for summer grazeing, those ones do have magnificent horns though.
You are doing great!
The yellow is probably canary stains...there's a bacterial process with lanolin if it's stored for too long, which is why many people recommend at minimum scouring before storage
MijnWolden has a lot of videos on preparing fleeces and spinning wool, and having fun with different fiber shenanigans, I wholeheartedly recommend checking out her channel!
Take snacks. You’ll be there a while🤓🍡🍬🧁🍧
Trish from Fiber Love Diary is the one who taught me how to process fleece and gave me enough courage to try it for myself :) I also love Jente from MijnWolden :)
For scouring, I really recommend the soap Unicorn Power Scour! It smells really good and it is soooo good at scouring. There’s some great blog articles about it too 😊
Love watching this process , I don't know anything about it , so curious about it , Thank You for another great video!!
I am just finishing up scouring my first fleece. It was a messy job. I ended up laying it out on my ironing board to dry. It has air flow above and beneath. I bought hand carders - Ashford sells a learn to spin kit with a few bits of fibre, some hand carders, and a spindle.
If you wanted to comb the fleece, you could have dispensed with pulling all the lock structure apart. There is no way to realign all the fibres now for combing, but your clouds are now ready to card or spin from the cloud.
She can still comb the clouds, if she wants. The prep won't be true worsted, more semi-woolen, still a lovely prep after dizzing off the combs though. Makes lovely yarn.
when i was a kid, my grandma never bothered with washing the whole thing , she just separate things and wash it in small chunks. a after that it was just dried it and pulled it apart, like fluffing it. and after that she just used spindle to make thread. not sure if thats how its done now
The tutorials I've seen of using a flick brush have used a protective covering for the leg and then flicked the fleece against their knee (disclaimer -I've done a lot of research into this but haven't personally tried it). This might be a safer way of using the brush as it allows for greater control/more space between the brush and your fingers. Two layers of denim (e.g. an old leg from a pair of jeans) seems to be a popular choice for leg protection while doing this.
Also, if you prepare the fleece in this way you can spin it directly from having flicked the fleece - which is why I was looking into it as I'm on a very tight budget & can't afford the carding combs.
I put a piece of leather (from an old coat) over my thigh for flicker protection.
I have an old piece of canvas from a failed art adventure that now goes over my knee when I flick locks :)
@@jirup Thank you both to you and to @AmyMcScience - I will remember your advice when I finally get around to trying fleece prep/flicking
I'm currently knitting with 19 micron Merino wool. It's not super commercial but it's the same base that a lot of independent dyers have been using this past season in Argentina. I can promise you that by the end of my sweater I'll have a tub worth of little pieces of dried grass. I have a pair of tweezers by my side and I'm plucking like 3 pieces of straw on every row. I'm knitting fingering weight so it's A LOT.
What I'm saying is that you shouldn't worry too much about the vegetal matter, it's gonna be there anyway.
My mom's neighbor in Germany processes fleeces all the time and has been doing it for years. She soaks them in an old outdoor bathtub and actually uses a Kärcher (pressure washer) as one of the steps. It's been a while, but this fact I do remember because I didn't believe it until I actually saw it and was astounded that this didn't felt the fleece. I believe she only uses cold water, but can't be sure of this.
I learned to o that apron n is a necessity!!! I’m going through try the striker bucket next for processing my fleece. Seems to be a problem solver I. Cleaning and draining
I believe in order to have combed wool, and spin worsted, you have to keep the locks in their shape until you comb them out.
At my agricultural college, we give the rams marking harnesses and change the color every week that they are with the ewes so that we know approximately when each ewe was bred. We have an intensive management system and only a few rams, so we use the markings a little differently than a lot of farmers with a different system.
Picking is called tesen in Danish - directly related to teasing (out) in English
You are fantastic! I would be way too anxious that I would ruin a fleece to try processing it myself ❤
In New Zealand the blue tupping marks are a type of chalk i believe
So enjoy your videos, inspiring,me to take up more fiber crafts ❤
The results are definitely worth the work! If i can ask what is the name of the song that was used for this video? Ive been searching for it on Epidemic and i just cannot find it. Thank you so much!! ❤
I used the mesh bags. It really helped to contain the fleece
I use a big puppy pad on my lap, you can see the dirt and debris come out . More will come out when you card it.
Very relaxing
@@susuabdo I like to put a towel over my lap that I can just shake off over a trash bin afterward.
I loved your red jumper - is that a pattern that can be knitted?
So fluffy! ♥️♥️♥️
Will the bits of dirt will come out when you card it?
To some extent. Combing is the best way to get rid of vegetable matter in a fleece, though some people prefer carded preps and some fleeces are really better suited for cards (shorter fleeces, in particular). Cards tend to break up the VM into smaller bits.
I am sorry you drew blood, but number one rule of working and preparing fleece is to make sure you're up to date on your tetanus shot, so definitely double check that before you keep going 😁. Enjoying the craftmas
I got metal mesh baskets from ikea to put the wool in. Then I can lift it undistubed from the wash bin, dump the water and create a fresh wash. Smelly business though.
👀😖Was it stinky?😖👀
Raw fleece is very stinky, it takes quite a few washes to get the sheep smell out of it.
Even before I started processing raw fleece and was only using milled wool for spinning my house stank of sheep.
That being said, some people actually love the smell.
What about soaking it in some Oxy-Clean -- it takes out discoloration and stains out very well.
Oxy Clean dissolves proteins, and so will attack and weaken the wool itself, which is less than ideal.
@@ellaisplotting I see
@@ellaisplottingI heard that's true of the 'ultra' products too. Enzymatic cleaners attack protein structure. So if you have to use them, only ten minutes and pull fibers out. Right?
@@robinr6399 I have used it for particularly filthy and stinky fleece, but never for more than a 15 minute soak. Unfortunately, it doesn't remove the canary stain at all (the bright yellow patches). I've tried on a few fleeces.
#1 rule to processing raw fleece.....make sure your tetanus vaccination is upto date. Otherwise there's no right or wrong way. Do what works for you. I've learnt on free or cheap raw wool. That way I have no guilt.