The Independent Stitch

As seen on TV: Fleece-washing kit!

So I was walking through the local Big Lots store, which contains a grab-bag of close-outs, when I caught sight of this, which somebody thought was an easy-to-clean cat litter box, apparently "as seen on TV."

I wouldn't know about the TV part, because we are in an area where cable is almost obligatory and we don't have it, and I don't know (or care) about the catbox part of it (even though I have a cat, who is happy with her current arrangements).

I looked at it and thought: FLEECE-WASHING KIT!

What the manufacturer sees as a "sifting tray" is, in truth, a perfect draining tray.

There are even two solid trays in the set. Having that second one could be useful for rinses, or successive wash baths, depending on how you were working your sequence.

Here's some mighty dirty fleece soaking in detergent water. The wool is contained by the draining tray, which is sitting in one of the solid trays.

Here I've lifted the draining tray and set it next to the soaking tray. Time to dump that grubby wash water on the right. Extra water is draining out of the wool in the tray on the left as it sits there without its lower tray.

Soak and drain, repeat with clear water:

The locks aren't disarranged and the fleece is almost done.

FIVE STARS to this set-up when used for wool washing. As a close-out, it was only $13. After confirming that it worked as well as I thought it might, I went back and got another one. I can put two of these set-ups in my bathtub simultaneously.

Some people like to wash their wool in mesh or net bags. I use wool-confinement systems sometimes, too, but I like it best when I can see the wool while I'm washing it, at the same time that I like to preserve the lock structure as long as possible . . . or at least until I decide to disturb that structure. Lock structure keeps all of the preparation options open: flicking, combing, carding, straight from the lock. (I've thought of a way to keep fine locks in even neater order than the process kept the coarse wool shown in these photos, although I haven't tested that idea yet. Fine wools are challenging, so I did my first system test with a less-persnickety type of fiber.)

If I watched TV, I'd be happy to see a commercial for a great fleece-washing kit. I suspect, however, that there aren't enough people in the TV-viewing demographic who need such a device and so those of us who need tools like this will have to discover them on our own.

They got one thing close to right: It's (very nearly) as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Lift Arrange fleece
2. Insert Soak
3. Reload Drain

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P.S. There's apparently a new version of this device that has a snap-on litter guard. I can't think of what use that would be for fleece-washing. UPCO, where we have gotten pet supplies for a number of years, has the simple version like I got, at a decent price (although not quite close-out level).

A problem for spinners: scurf in fiber

A question arose on Knitterguy's blog about a fleece that had some white stuff in it, and how the wool should be managed.

One of the topics raised in the discussion was scurf, which that particular white stuff wasn't. (It was probably lanolin, suint, and the like that had been dissolved and then redeposited on the wool because of temperature changes during washing; this happens most often with fine wools.)

However, there doesn't appear to be much information wandering around on the topic of scurf, which in the context of fiber processing is like dandruff, although most scurf I've seen comes in bigger flakes than dandruff.

Scurf is a nasty business to try to clean out of fiber. Here's what it looks like, being demonstrated by a lock of gorgeous, shiny, long mohair:

I say "try to clean out of fiber," not "to clean out of the fiber." The flakes are incredibly stubborn and difficult to boss around. They often hide inside the locks so you're not quite sure at first that they're there. The situation involves trying in all senses of the word.

Here's another photo, with the upper fibers of the lock pulled aside so the crud is easier to see:

Scurf is such a nuisance that it's a reason to pass up a fleece. I sure don't want it to get twisted into my yarn (because I think it's yucky), and it makes for bumpy spinning, too.

It may be worth working to banish the scurf if it's in only a few places or you only need a small amount of fiber AND the fiber is beautiful and checks out okay in all other regards. That was the case with this fiber.

Scurf has irregular edges and even after the fiber (and the bits of skin) has been washed it seems slightly oily or greasy, so it tends not to fall out of the locks if you tease or card the fiber, like some types of vegetable matter (that may look similar) do. Those bits of vegetable matter are dry, which makes a huge difference. Carding scurfy fiber makes the problem worse because it breaks the flakes into smaller bits and scatters them throughout the fiber mass. (The same thing can happen to vegetable matter, but is more likely to occur during mechanical, rather than hand, processing.)

Sometimes combing (with wool combs of any style, English or Viking or mini) can remove the scurf flakes. But combs are expensive, most of them are not very portable (I work a lot when I'm places other than home), combing sometimes doesn't remove this type of crud, and I'm always looking for new ways to process fiber. In this case, I was changing locations frequently during the day. I also thought I'd lose a lot of fiber if I combed, so I didn't even consider it seriously. The scurfy bits were right in the middles of the locks—the middle both lengthwise and girth-wise. It's easier if they're at one end—they're usually at the cut end, nearest the skin, which makes sense. The formation of the scurf may have been precipitated by an illness or parasite problem. There's a reason I looked for mohair when I wanted a scurf example: while the problem occurs in sheep, it's more common in goats, so much so that I'm not surprised when I find it. I suspect that scurf occurs in healthy goats; someone more familiar with goat husbandry is welcome to let me know whether my suspicion is correct! This fiber certainly appeared to come from a very healthy animal.

With types of vegetable matter that are willing to fall out of the fiber when encouraged to do so, a dog comb can be very useful. It's worth trying here, too, even though scurf usually doesn't just fall out.

And the dog comb did do a decent job on this fiber. However, after about 10 minutes of combing on this lock (while waiting for the car to get its oil change), you can still see a bunch of scurfy bits about a third of the way from the butt end (right side). The combing took WAY too much time and wasn't fun, and didn't do as thorough a job as I'd have liked (I would have taken a photo of the stuff that I did get out, but a big wind came up and blew it off the porch just before I snapped the shutter). The teeth of the comb tended to snag in the lock, so if I'd really gone at it I'd have pulled out (and wasted) a lot of good fiber.

On the way home from getting the car tended, I stopped at Poudre Feed & Supply and they encouraged me to take the dog and cat grooming tools out of their packages and try them. Most of the tools had teeth that were too soft and a few were too harsh. The guy who was helping me suggested that this might work:

(By the way, I appreciate places like Poudre Feed and Ace Hardware where I can actually tell the staff what I'm trying to find tools to do . . . whatever it is . . . and they don't look at me funny.)

Here's how that brush made relatively quick work of this scurf problem.

Holding the tip of a lock firmly, I drew just a bit of its cut end across the brush.

I worked progressively more deeply into the lock, while also letting it spread out across the brush. The fiber is moving, not the brush. I'm holding the brush steady.

I sometimes use my thumb on top of the lock to guide it deeply into the teeth (unlike regular carding where you want the fiber to stay close to the surface of the carding cloth). Although the teeth of this slicker are flexible and not too stiff, it's good to keep my thumb away from the tips as much as possible. A whole bunch of holding the thumb against the slicker teeth results in a thumb that looks (and feels) like it's been sanded.

The flakes move (slowly) down the lock as I continue to draw the lock across the teeth of the brush. Once the fibers start opening up, the flakes and just a few tangled bits of fiber begin to get caught in the teeth and stay there.

This is what I want. Flakes OUT of fiber. I could probably do this job the same way with one of my stiffest wool carders, but I don't want to have to clean the crud out from between the teeth or have it get into the next fiber I want to process with the carders. I also think this slicker brush was gentler on the fiber than the carder would have been.

The lock becomes broader and the fibers are spread more widely and the scurf gets caught in the teeth. The thinner the layer of fiber, the bigger the scurfy flakes are in comparison to the fiber. They can't hide as well and are more inclined to move down and out with repeated strokes across the brush.

Not much fiber is being snagged in the teeth, and that's good. I have to be careful to work all the way to the middle of the lock (because there's stuff there; in truth, there's stuff everywhere but the very tip of the lock), but to do so gradually so the fibers don't tangle and so I'm not having to work too hard.

Compared to the 10 minutes with the dog comb, we're now about 20 seconds into this lock.

I turn it around, hold the cut end, and begin to work gradually into the tip end.

After I've worked to the middle again, here's a nifty thing about this tool . . . I push a spring-loaded button on the back and the base pushes up and releases the crud from the teeth:

The brush is now clean for my next lock of the mohair, or anything else I want to work with. Getting the flakes OUT and AWAY from the fiber is primary here. Into the trash with them! As soon as possible!

Here's a lock before brushing. There's scurf hiding throughout that middle section. You can see just a little here and there. It's sneaky.

Here's a lock after brushing, with the debris and scurf (and tangled or short fibers) in a pad removed from the brush:

I could still work the middle a little better to loosen the fibers more evenly, but nearly all of the problems are gone. It took somewhere between 40 and 60 seconds, and wasn't aggravating.

When you think about using a minute per lock to clean the scurf out, you can see that you wouldn't want to do a whole sweater's worth nor would you want to invest the time in a mediocre fiber.

And you would think twice about taking responsibility for a very large batch of scurfy fiber, even if it was free.

Here's the yarn, just a sample, that I spun from about half a dozen brush-prepared locks:

It's perfectly fine yarn, but not perfect yarn, in part because of the legacy of the scurf. Here's a single strand:

Over on the lefthand edge there's a small jumble of fiber. I wasn't spinning a classic worsted yarn, but I was spinning to emphasize worsted qualities. That squidgy bit is a little snarl that formed when I tried to pick off yet another flake of scurf while I was spinning . . . against my better judgment, but in total concordance with my instincts. The yarn would have been smoother and more even if I had let the bit of scurf become part of the yarn, but I just couldn't. So I've got a small number of scrambled fibers instead, because I had to pry the flake loose.

Scurf. PG-13. Sometimes R.

Quotes of the day

• "Spinning lends itself to analysis, but should not be controlled by it. Measuring your fibers, counting your treadling and turns per inch, and estimating angles of twist enable you to take stock. But keeping in mind the end use, and occasionally checking yarn for size and strength while spinning, can produce a good yarn."   — Bette Hochberg (from "Spinning Fine Yarn: (It's Method, not Magic)," originally published in Interweave, Summer 1980, and also located in Reprints of Bette Hochberg's Textile Articles)
• "For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."    — Alice Kahn (quote found on 6/22/08 page of Wild Words from Wild Women calendar)

A few ways to help save rare breeds and species that produce irreplaceable fibers

I got interested in rare-breed conservation when I realized that the animals that produced most of my favorite handspinning fibers were on the watchlists posted by organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.

That was a number of years ago. Because of the ongoing support of a number of people, some of those breeds are in much better shape now. Some are still very precarious. They all need our interest and help.

Here are some ideas and actions that can make a difference:

• Experience rare-breed fibers for yourself. Some are even clean and ready to spin, knit, crochet, weave, or felt! Check out sources like (in alphabetical order) The Spinning Loft and Spirit Trail Fiberworks.
• Join and/or donate to organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, and other organizations (list here). ALBC publishes an annual directory of breeders who may have yarns, rovings, or fleece you can buy. (Google searches can also be interesting, as can careful browsing of the booths at fiber festivals.)
• Support people who are raising rare-breed fiber animals; this includes individual farms as well as historic sites like George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens and  Colonial Williamsburg; help a nearby living history site with its livestock program (help it develop one if it doesn't have one already). When you make contributions, make sure people know you are especially interested in the fiber animals!
• Wear your heart sheep on your sleeve shirt. (With a rare-breed sweater on top for warmth.)
• Learn about the conservation of biodiversity in domesticated, as well as wild, animals; discover and support the work of the SVF Foundation and the National Germplasm Project (through ALBC).
• If it suits your lifestyle, make room in your life for some rare-breed animals. (For genetic conservation purposes, cross-breeding doesn't count. It has other uses. Just not in keeping rare breeds around.) Or help someone who does have them.

Okay, that's a lot. Just pick one thing to learn a little bit more about . . . or just pick up a skein of breed-specific yarn to play with, whether the breed is rare or not. Educate your fingers about what different wools feel like (although this isn't just about wools, of course; we've lost cottons, and we need to safeguard our flax quality, and . . . ). "Merino" and "100% wool" are just the entry points to an amazing universe of options. I've been engaged in this process for years. It's fascinating, and extremely rewarding.

A couple of books:

• Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools (out of print, but still available from some retailers; Google finds it): a small book, full of inspiration about what to do with rare-breed wools
• The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds, by Janet Vorwald Dohner: a big book, full of information and stories; borrow it from the library until you decide you want your own copy; she has the best information I've seen on Santa Cruz sheep

Have fun! And surprise yourself, as I just did in the discovery process of the most recent three posts.

Working with imperfect fleece: part 3, spinning

I haven't had time yet to work out a way to take photos of my own hands while I'm spinning. I need some sort of extended shutter release that I can hit with my foot.

Meanwhile, we'll make do with what I can come up with, which is yarn photos with captions.

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Because I'd carded rolags, I was tempted to wonder (even against my better judgment) whether I might be able to spin the wool with a long draw, which emphasizes the woolen (as opposed to worsted) qualities in the yarn. I drew out a yard, even though I knew it wasn't going to work very well. This is what I got:

Ick, of course. Twist travels to the narrow spots in the yarn. When the fibers are in great shape and well prepared, you can draft out slubs without difficulty. However, when you're dealing with second cuts and other neps, they won't draft out. The twist travels to the narrow spots. It skips the neps completely, turning all the nep-regions into weak spots that break. You get ugly, fragmented yarn (and a lot of frustration).

On to the short draw, which gives more direct control over each segment of yarn:

There are still bumps at some of the neps (1) and thinner spots that collect twist (2), but it's possible to elongate the neps, making them slimmer and securing them more effectively in the yarn (to the left of 1 and between 1 and 2). It's a drastically better yarn: more even and far sturdier.

While spinning, I remove any second cuts or other bits that will leave with one quick plucking motion. I get rid of some of the vegetable matter (VM) by pinching the new yarn quickly between my fingernails and stroking firmly toward the orifice of the wheel. That movement sometimes snaps off the ends of a piece of plant on both sides of the strand and they drop away. Another quick scrub of the nails down the yarn and the remaining middle bit of VM falls out of the forming yarn. I don't do more of this than I can easily accomplish while keeping the rhythm of the spinning going. I spin a relatively slender singles with a fairly high amount of twist because the fibers are only 1.5 to 1.75 inches (38 to 45 mm) long and are quite fine.

Two-plied, fresh off the bobbin, here's what my small skein looks like:

Even with the irregular twist caused by the neps, the skein as a whole is balanced.

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Using an old Weave-It loom (the new version is a Weavette), I made a quick square just to play with the behavior of a fabric made of this yarn.

Then I got my skein wet to finish the yarn. I usually don't weight my skeins, but this one looked like it wanted to dry under just a bit of tension. I balanced a half-full shampoo bottle against the side of the shower; some time during the night the bottle fell into the tub, but it had already done its minimal amount of work by then.

Here's the finished skein:

That crinkled spot in the skein is from the too-sharp bend it took around the hook on the shower caddy. Take a look at my little woven square: I rubbed it for between 20 and 30 seconds in the warm water with the detergent and it started to full up nicely.

The yarn I spun isn't even and regular. I knew from the beginning it wouldn't be. It couldn't possibly be, because of the condition of the fleece. But it is quite pleasing:

If I knitted or wove it into a fabric, it would be pretty and comfortable and it would wear well. (Yes, it would dye nicely, too, if I wanted a color other than white.)

My daughter can't wear most wools . . . or even many luxury fibers . . . next to her skin. She finds them scratchy. She has a far lower "itch factor" threshold than most people. She can handle baby alpaca and qiviut (ha; she does not have a baby alpaca or qiviut sweater). Even most Merino doesn't work for her; the finest Merinos probably would, although she hasn't encountered one of them yet. She'd probably do fine with cashmere.

I handed her the small washed swatch of rare-breed wool and she felt it with her fingers and then lifted it to her cheek as her eyes grew wide.

"This is really soft," she said, rubbing it against her face. "I could wear this!" She looked more closely. "It has a nice shine to it, too."

Later, as I sit here writing these comments, I bury my nose in the skein. It smells sweet and clean, and ever-so-slightly like spring, and a whole lot like hope.

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These posts have described one way to deal with an imperfect fleece, and that final small skein is a heck of a good reason for doing so. Although it's nowhere near as nice as the specific yarn I remember from the Save the Sheep contest, it's recognizably a close relative. And it's a long, long way from where I started.

The completed yarn has a lot of character. It's unique, and it's got a whiff of magic to it.

By the way, the wool is from one of the few remaining Santa Cruz sheep—a three-year-old ram. He's a miracle, and I think my wonderful, slightly irregular, yarn is a tribute to his survival and a personal argument in favor of his breed's continued existence.

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Tomorrow: A few ways to help save rare breeds and species that produce irreplaceable fibers
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Copyright 2008 Deborah Robson

Working with imperfect fleece: part 2, carding

Once the grease and most of the dirt are out of the way, I can get a better look at what I'm dealing with. The biggest problem in this fleece is not its length (very short, 1.5 to 1.75 inches, or 38 to 45mm) but the second cuts and other neppy bits.

The red Xs show discrete bits of short fiber, mostly second cuts, that can be pulled out. Not easily pulled out, because this wool is fine enough that every fiber grabs onto its neighbors and tangles up with them. On a coarser wool, the second cuts often stay discrete and just drop, or can be brushed, off. The purple X is smaller but presents a bigger problem. It's short fiber but a tiny bit and ill-defined, it's hard to see within the fiber mass and even harder to remove: it also snarls with all the adjacent fibers, and it truly doesn't want to leave. It will make a bump in the finished yarn . . . not a large bump, but also not an avoidable bump. (Note also the tiny scattering of debris that has fallen out of the sample as I picked the wool apart . . . it's quite evident in the lower right corner of the photo. After five washes and three rinses, there's still "stuff" in the wool. I figure it's clean "stuff" by now, though.)

The whole fleece looks like the sample above. If I try to get all the stray bits out, I'll go nuts and I won't have much wool left to spin. If I try to pull loose the neps, I'll also scrumble up the relatively clear parts of the locks, creating problem areas that don't exist now.

It's time for a zen approach to these neps. I won't ignore them completely—the short bits don't help either appearance or durability, and not making at least an attempt to get them out is against my nature—but I'm only going to pay attention to the obvious ones.

Now it's time to pick a preparation tool. The wool needs preparation. I would like to see exactly how much regularity I can coax out of this fleece. I want to show it at its best, whatever I think that is.

Spinning from the lock isn't an option; the locks aren't well enough defined. Simply picking and spinning won't minimize the effect of the neps. The wool is too short for any type of combs, and the locks aren't clear enough for that approach anyway. Flicking's out of the question . . . again, flicking wants locks.

So I turn to carders.

I've been at this long enough that I have a variety to choose from.

1. "Cotton" carders, or carders with fine teeth.
2. My first "wool" carders, bought unfinished many years ago. I coated them with the same finish I used on my first wheel. They have fairly fine teeth, and have been broken in so thoroughly that the teeth are very flexible.
3. My replacement "wool" carders, newer, with slightly coarser teeth that are pretty stiff. They are also much heavier than my old carders.
4. Not a carder but an old dog brush that I use for cleaning all of the carders when I change fibers. The teeth are splayed from use, but it still does its job just fine.
   

The neps will probably snag in the teeth of the fine ("cotton") carders, which I normally use for fibers as delicate as this wool. I'd feel like I was fighting to get the work done.

I think the new "wool" carders will be too harsh for what feels, under all the weight of grunge that it's carried, like a fairly delicate batch of fiber.

I'll use my old favorites: they win on account of their relatively fine teeth and pronounced flexibility. I also like them best, possibly because I've used them the most. (I'd like to find another pair that's as lightweight and has the same density of carding cloth. I've been looking intermittently for a number of years.)

I charge one carder with wool. "Charging" the carder means, ideally, catching one end of each lock in the teeth and spreading wool evenly across the surface; it's not a precise process, but you don't want to embed the wool in the teeth, just snag a bit there so it holds momentarily. The amount of wool on the carder matters a lot. Too much or too little makes the work harder; too much is worse than too little.

This is when the wool actually looks the least promising that it will in this whole start-to-finish process—even more dismal than it did when it was dirty, because all the imperfections are glaring at me. I can see all the neps. I can't charge the cards cleanly because of the jumbles and varying lock lengths. I pull off a couple of second cuts that pop to the surface. I leave the others that are more entangled.

I card the wool. As it turns out, three passes does the most good without belaboring the wool and potentially snarling it. The results will never be perfectly even; that's impossible here. I pull off a few more neps that show up on the surface of the fiber.

After the three passes, I lift the wool out of the teeth of the carders and roll it into a rolag. Because the fiber is so fine and short, this rolag almost looks and feels like a puni (I linked to Joan Ruane there; she knows a whole lot about cotton; punis are a traditional preparation for cotton spinning).

Puni-like or not, this wool does not feel "cotton-y." It's quite airy and offers the promise of some bounce . . . "bounce" in the fine-wool sense, which is a subtle thing. These qualities hint at the character I remember in the yarn made from this breed's wool by a spinner who entered it in the Save the Sheep contest.

There's another easy-to-remove second cut at the arrow. I pull it off the surface.

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I made four rolags at the end of the evening and went to bed somewhat depressed.  I know the potential of the wool that this breed produces, and it's going to be hard to demonstrate that with this fiber. There was clearly something special about their wool if I've remembered one encounter for years.

At the same time, these sheep are so seriously at risk of extinction that the caretakers of the few animals that remain—in several small flocks, geographically separated—are focusing their efforts on just keeping the animals going in an appropriate breeding population. Wool is the least of their concerns. Wool regrows. As long as the animals are alive and healthy, the wool can receive better attention in future years.

Yet if we can show how wonderful the wool is, then growing and selling the wool (carefully tended) produces another, fairly strong, economic force to support this conservation effort.

I almost started spinning to see how the fiber would look as yarn, because I was afraid that it wouldn't even hint at the potential, but I didn't want to do that when I was tired. I went to sleep wondering if I'd ever experience that magical hand again, or if the sum of efforts to maintain the bit of biodiversity that this breed of sheep represents would all be inadequate.

But the questions of breed survival are all topics for another day, and I knew better than to spin when I was feeling this discouraged. I'm rarely so discouraged. So I chalked it up to fatigue and quit for the day.

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In the morning, I spun one rolag. I'll talk about that in another post. Imperfect as it was, it gave me enough hope to move forward again, and soon I had six more imperfect rolags . . .

. . . a total of ten from my small colander-full of wool.

Plus a bunch of clots I pulled out. This isn't all of them, but it's a representative collection—some more dense, some less so:

Three rolags before I was done, something unfortunate occurred:

The back of one of my favorite carders split, all the way across. They're curved-back carders and one was suddenly a floppy flat-backed carder. Using it gently and making the other half of the pair do the hard work, I completed the rolags and headed home (where I wasn't at the time) for a meeting with the wood glue.

I found the glued carder a place to sit without pressure on the curved back while it dries, and a way to keep the join in the curved wood secured overnight.

I hope the mending line holds.

In the next installment of this series, I'll talk about spinning imperfect yarn from imperfectly prepared imperfect fleece.

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Copyright 2008 Deborah Robson

Working with imperfect fleece: part 1, initial evaluation and washing

We spinners in particular parts of the globe at the beginning of the twenty-first century have been pretty spoiled by the availability of clean, combed or carded, organized, sweet-smelling fiber. Lots of that fiber has been dyed luscious colors. We see, we want, we buy, we take home, we spin (and we blog).

There are compelling reasons to track fiber back to its source and learn to begin with the raw material. That's a topic for another time (or several other times), except for a brief discussion now about dealing with less-than-perfect fleece. Because sometimes there are compelling reasons to hand-process less-than-perfect fleece.

Why?

In this case, I'm spinning wools from rare breeds. One of the ways we can ensure the survival of the genetic resources embodied in rare breeds is to create markets for their wool. In order to do that, we need to know something about the wool. In order to become knowledgeable, we need to spin it.

I'm not going to name the breed I'm spinning right now because that's not important to this discussion. It's a severely endangered breed that is superbly adapted to a particular environment. Beyond the other genetic traits that argue in favor of our facilitating its survival, it grows wool that, years ago, was spun into one of the most tactilely appealing yarns I've ever encountered—it had an almost magical hand ("hand" being the textile person's word for the way a fiber or fabric feels). In the nineteenth century, many more years ago, a major newspaper referred to it as some of the best wool on the planet (I'm paraphrasing; the praise was high).

Few of these sheep survive. Getting fiber took some doing. Someone generously sent me a sample. Having it here is a minor miracle.

Evaluation

Time for initial an initial assessment of what's in front of me:

This is what any handspinner would call an imperfect fleece. It contains vegetable matter (shorthand VM; bits of stick and grass and the like) and dirt (various types). There are some second cuts (places where the shearer took two passes with the shears and left tiny bits of wool at the butt, or cut, end of the locks). Sometimes second cuts are easy to pull, or occasionally just brush, off the inside of the fleece. Because of the fineness of this fiber, that wasn't the case here. Second cuts will be something I'll deal with from start to finish on this fiber. I'll pay some attention to them, but I won't let myself get obsessed; I'll have to go with the flow of this particular fleece and see what happens. The locks are really short: 1.5 to 1.75 inches  (37.5 to 45 mm), unstretched.

Here's a closer view:

The green color on that piece of VM is one piece of good news. Another is the softness of the mass of wool. This has been freshly shorn. The grease hasn't hardened on the fiber. The VM will be mostly supple instead of prickery. The tips, although clumped together by dirt (and a bit of dung here and there), aren't felted or fragile, and the muck hasn't turned into near-crockery. The portions of the locks toward the inside of the fleece (the cut ends, the most recent growth, the parts protected by the tips, which gathered the muck and didn't let it go deep into the wool) are white and soft. And yet more good news: the wool feels bouncy, with some crimp and loft to it . . . those would have been the qualities that would have contributed to the magical hand of that long-ago yarn.

I already know that with this particular fleece I won't be able to spin a yarn like the one that I remember. This wool is too short and too dirty (it's the type of dirt that matters, not the quantity), and has too many second cuts and other neppy clumps.

But because of its rarity, because of my overall project, and because it looks workable, I proceed with washing.

Washing

The wool is in a colander about 8.5 inches (22 cm) across inside a slightly larger bowl in my kitchen sink, which has two basins. I'm working with about a third of the mass seen in the first photo. The picture below shows the third wash; the water is still dirty, but it's nowhere near as grubby as the water from the first two washes (I only thought to start taking photos of washing when I got to number three).

Here's the process:

1. Put the dry wool in the colander, which is sitting in the righthand sink. The blue bowl goes in the lefthand sink.
2. Fill the blue bowl two-thirds with the hottest water from the tap. Turn off the water and generously squirt in washing aid (I usually use the blue variety of Dawn dishwashing detergent); the goal is to make the water feel slippery but not to raise bubbles. Gently stir the water to distribute the detergent. Fill the bowl the rest of the way with near-boiling water from the teakettle. I like the water not so hot that I can't put my hand in, but hot enough that I don't want to keep it there. Thus the rubber glove.
3. Set the colander on top of the bowl. The wool will float on the surface and then begin to sink. Let it. (Sometimes I press it very gently just to submerge it, but that's just because I'm impatient.)
4. Remember that wool + hot water + soap agent + agitation = felt.
5. Set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes and go do something else. The goal is to move to the next step before the water has cooled down appreciably.
6. When the timer goes off, come back and lift the colander out of the bowl and set it in the righthand sink to drain. (Shake the colander up and down to push some of the excess water out.)
   
7. Empty the washing bowl, checking to see how clear the water is (or isn't). If there's sand or mud in the bottom of the bowl, rinse it out.
8. Repeat steps 2 through 7 as many times as needed, until the water in the washing bowl is clear, or nearly so.

There's actually a terrific wool-washing tutorial at what turns out to be a site embodying some of the wisdom of Straw Into Gold. Considering that Straw was one of my most important suppliers in the dark ages (even though I didn't live nearby and depended on UPS to make the connection), perhaps it's appropriate that I've been washing my wool for decades using the methods described here. There's a lot more detail. It's good detail.

Because this wool was so grubby, I did several things that aren't part of my wool-washing routine and that I don't recommend except when absolutely necessary.

After the first couple of washes, when it became apparent that more active work was required or I'd be dipping and draining for weeks, I gently rubbed the tips of the wool between my (glove-clad) fingers to release it from the still-caked dirt. I also lifted the mass of wool and set it in the colander with the bottom side up, again to help release more dirt into the water below the colander. I did handle this fleece a lot more than usual, and used motions that I'd normally use to make felt . . . on quite a fine wool that would be expected to felt easily, even without prime conditions. I just didn't use those motions very long in any single location.

Two washes is the normal amount. (Sometimes I do an initial cold-water soak in plain water; the amount of time the wool spends in this soak isn't critical; it can be a few hours or overnight. There's no temperature issue involved.)

After five washes, I decided enough was enough, even though the wash water still wasn't as clear as it usually gets.

Here's rinse bath number one—same temperature, but no detergent. The wool is not perfectly clean, but it's significantly whiter. I've generally ignored the VM, except to pull out the obvious stuff.

This is obviously not a perfect washing job. Any attempt to reach that level would be counterproductive—it would at least waste time, and maybe turn the wool into felt.

Three rinses. Also more than usual.

I'm still ignoring the VM. It will likely fall out in the next stages of processing. I've also got some remaining dirt, but I've been here approximately 5 x 20 plus 3 x 20 minutes, and even though I've been working while the wool soaked I've got other things to do that require fewer interruptions.

I roll the wool in a terrycloth towel and squeeze it gently to remove some of the water. The towel is what is handy; a salad spinner would also work, but I don't have one right now that's reserved for fiber use. (I also scrubbed out both sinks with cleanser.)

So now the wool gets to dry. This is one of the few times that it's advantageous to live in a semi-arid climate. The Manx Loaghtan wool (the brown) is 99% dry after just an overnight rest on the drying rack (the tips are sun-lightened, a characteristic of the breed, but not a problem). My new wool joins it, and because there's less of it than the Manx and it's not as dense in the locks it will dry even more rapidly.

I won't really know what I have to work with until the wool is fully dry and I start the next steps.

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Copyright 2008 Deborah Robson

News from Estes Park: Keep the Fleece contest

At the Estes Park Wool Market, I learned about an upcoming project being sponsored by Wild Fibers magazine, along with some other folks. Called Keep the Fleece, it pertains to topics I care a great deal about—and I'm working on a related project myself. There will be a web site, but it is not active at the time I'm writing this (at www.keepthefleece.com, when it's ready). So I'd like to share the initial information that I picked up at the Wool Market here. If you want to submit your work to a contest like this, you can't ever get started too early. It's good to have lots of imagining time, as well as working time.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was editor of Spin-Off magazine, we sponsored a project called Save the Sheep. It included what turned out to be an international juried competition, a traveling exhibit (on the road for two years), a book called Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools (now unfortunately out of print, but still in stock at some vendors), a slide show, and a trunk show of rare-breed samples. It was an amazing endeavor to be involved with, and. . . .

It's definitely time for the next step! How nice that Wild Fibers is the primary catalyst this time.

Here are the basics:

• 2009 is the United Nations International Year of Natural Fibres.
• There's an international contest, with a deadline of April 1, 2009.
• There will be a book published in September 2009 (fast track from the deadline!) that includes selected winning entries.

Here's the front of a brochure on the contest (many details still being ironed out):

Here's what it says inside:

• "We want people from around the world to be inspired by the versatility of natural fibers, and to understand their importance not only as a natural resource, but to the environment and the people who are directly involved in the farming, harvesting and manufacturing process."
• "Four Simple A's (otherwise known as the contest rules): Anyone can enter. This contest is for everyone—professionals and amateurs alike. There is a separate category for professional designers although a single item may be entered in multiple categories where appropriate. For example, a scarf designed by Pam Allen made from Shetland wool could be entered in both the Island Life category (for the island wool) and Pro-create (for professional designers). Anywhere in the world. "Keep the Fleece" is focused on creating a universal fiber community including women who knit with feverish abandon Down Under and cops who crochet on the beat in Guatemala. Any fiber—naturally. "Natural" fiber includes any type of protein fiber (from animals) or cellulosic fiber (from plants). April 1st, 2009. No fooling—that's the deadline. A select group of winning entries will be published in a book available by September 2009—so get busy!"
• "Contest Categories (this is only a partial listing): Camelot, Fiber from camelids: guanaco, vicuna, alpaca, llama, and camel; Island Life, Any fiber that originates from an island, such as Icelandic wool, or sheep native to North Ronaldsay, St. Kilda, etc.; Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Plant fibers, including but not limited to cotton, hemp, jute, and coconut; Inch by Inch, 100% pure or recycled silk; Like a Virgin, Any fiber from a young animal (kid mohair, baby alpaca, etc.) . . . "

Because the organizers haven't completed the categories, I'm not going to key in the rest, but that gives the idea. Whatever natural fiber anyone wants to work with, there will be at least one category and probably more to choose from.

Sounds like fun. My time's already committed, so it's extremely unlikely (one chance in a million) that I'll be entering, but many of the activities I'm committed to are related, so some of my posts may be helpful to those who will be participating.

I'm planning, for example, to talk soon about today's task: washing some rare breed wool that sure wasn't raised with handspinners in mind. But now I've got to go tend the soaking bowls again.

Estes Park Wool Market: some comments, and a few goats and sheep

The Estes Park Wool Market was held near the roof of the Rocky Mountains this weekend, and I was there both days. I just cruised around and visited and generally took a break from being in the office and beset by deadlines. Yes, I got some work done, but it was hanging-out-and-learning kind of work. It was both productive and low-key.

I don't have many photos, because I was knitting and listening and watching and chatting most of the time (I had a spindle, but never stayed in one compatible-for-spinning place long enough to pull it out).

If you just go to Estes Park and visit the vendors, it's worth the trip but you've missed a lot. In addition to the fiber-related vendors, the sheep-to-shawl, the skein and finished item competitions, the workshops, and the regular sheep and goat fleece show, the Estes Park Wool Market brings in a lot of species- and/or breed-specific shows. This year, these events included:

• Camelids: 2008 AOBA (Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association) Certified Alpaca Fleece Show
• Camelids: Paco-Vicuna Fleece Show
• Camelids: ALSA (Alpaca Llama Show Association) Llama Show
• Camelids: Llama Fleece and Fiber Show
• Goats: Angora Goat Show
• Goats: 2008 Nationals of the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association
• Goats: Cashmere Goat Show
• Sheep: Natural Colored Wool Sheep Show
• Sheep: 2008 Bluefaced Leicester National Show
• Sheep: Classic Breeds Specialty Show (Shetlands, Black Welsh Mountain, Icelandic, and Jacobs)
• Sheep: White Handspinning Sheep Show

There was even more, of course.

Whenever I go to a festival without a teaching agenda, I can't possibly see everything that goes on, so I pick a couple of activities that seem interesting and/or handy and that I don't know enough about and I settle in for a while.

Animal judging takes time. On Saturday I spent several hours around the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association contingent's 2008 national show. There were a lot of great goats, and I have no photos of them. I did complete about another inch of my blue Aran-style cardigan (I'm on the body).

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I wandered around the vendors' barn on Saturday afternoon, managing to see about half of it after the morning crowds had dissipated.

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And on Sunday morning, I watched the Youth Showmanship part of the goat shows, which was open to any young person with fiber goats to show but the part I saw was definitely dominated by the cashmeres. The three classes were: Novice, 10 and under; Junior, ages 11 to 13; and Senior, ages 14 and up. Most of what I saw were the senior exhibitors.

Here was one of my favorite goats:

This is, indeed, a cashmere goat, although the cashmere (undercoat) has been combed out. Each of the exhibitors carried a great big bag full of fiber so the judge could evaluate that as well as the animal. There's one edge of a fiber bag visible on the left side of the picture above. In the photo below, you can see one of the bags of fiber produced by the goat in the background: the exhibitor has goat lead in one hand and fiber in the other.

That goat in the front was called "Grandma" by the judge. This goat apparently has triplets every year. And, as the judge pointed out, she is "still covered in cashmere" (even though a bunch had already been combed out and was in the requisite bag). The cashmere the judge was referring to is the soft down that looks like fluff all over her. Grandma was awarded first prize in the "aged doe" (adult female) class, and she and one of her offspring took home the blue in the "mother-and-daughter" class as well. I liked that she won lots of recognition. The judge remarked several times on how old she was, and how good she was.

Later in the afternoon, I made my way through the goat, llama, alpaca, paco-vicuna, and sheep areas, with intervening forays into the vendors' area to see what I'd missed on Saturday and to visit with friends. Sunday is lots quieter than Saturday.

I'm quite fond of Karakul sheep. I like spinning their wool, too. Long ago, when I was learning to spin, I ordered three Karakul fleeces—black, white, and gray—and washed and spun them all. It was a great experience and I wove the results into a rug. Karakul makes fantastic rugs: colorful, durable, with appealing texture.

Here's a lovely red Karakul, with a black one behind her and a multicolored one on her left. I haven't seen mixed coloring like that lefthand sheep before (at least not on a Karakul).

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The Karakul's coloring looks like it has had an influence on our dog Tussah's. Tussah will be featured in tomorrow's post.

Spring: the time for fresh fleece

Yes, the birds are singing in the trees, which are covered with bright leaves, and flowers have begun to bloom abundantly. But there's a subtler sign of spring in some lives:

Ms. Little Bit doesn't go outside any more. She actually hasn't gone outside in quite a long time, which may be why she's 21 years old. Sometimes, however, a few of the most delightful parts of outside come in to her.

I opened a box today that contained some fresh fleeces and even though the contents were wrapped in plastic she snuggled right in for a nap while I checked out the contents and made labels. She has very good taste. She decided to nestle into some exquisite Romeldale (in front), a lovely gray Rambouillet (most Rambouillet is white), and a nice, creamy puff of American Tunis.

I think the position of her nose is important. The plastic bags are not, obviously, an impediment. They aren't sealed tightly. They have open ends to let the wool breathe, and coincidentally to release their fragrance.

This is all in-the-grease fleece, you understand. It smells like nothing else on earth: some people appreciate the bouquet of a fine wine, and others the complex, warm aroma of freshly shorn wool (it's not the same after it's aged).

I'm always surprised to remember that Tunis have been in the U.S. since 1799. Rambouillets, which are the French branch of the Merino family, started up with some sheep sent to France from Spain in 1786 (when the Spanish finally let some Merinos be exported). They started being brought into North America in the middle of the nineteenth century. A Rambouillet association was formed in the United States in 1889.

For a while, it wasn't clear whether there would be more Tunis or more Rambouillet in the U.S. Now it's estimated that half the range sheep in the Western U.S. are Rambouillets, and the Tunis is on "watch" status with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Fortunately, the breed's situation is improving slowly but steadily (there are increasing numbers of breeders and animals). They're very nifty looking sheep with brown faces and legs. Gray Rambouillets are very special, too. The commercial flocks produce all white wool, because when you're selling large quantities of wool any colored fiber destroys the value of the mass.

It's such a pretty gray. . . . And just meant for handspinning.

Romeldales were developed in the early twentieth century from a cross of New Zealand Marsh Romney and the by-then-well-established Rambouillet. In the 1960s, a color variant of Romeldale appeared, which sheep expert Glen Eidman developed into a breed called California Variegated Mutant, or CVM. The odd thing about a breed is that the offspring look like the parents. As the saying goes, "breeds breed true." If these colored sheep had simply appeared randomly within a Romeldale flock now and then, the CVMs would not be considered a breed. But two CVM parents produce CVM offspring. It's a breed, although people talk about CVM/Romeldale together because the two breeds are so closely related. They are in the "critical" (most endangered) category of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's current watchlist. Ouch. This is some of the prettiest wool I've ever seen in my life. (I've seen a lot of wool.)

Both American Tunis and CVM/Romeldale are breeds unique to North America.

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Tomorrow I'm heading for the Estes Park Wool Market. This year I'm attending without teaching, speaking, or judging anything. I'm meeting up with one friend to share a hotel room with, and I'm planning just to enjoy being there.

I received nine bags of fiber today, eight small and one large. I'll be busy over the next month or two. That's not all the wool I've got, either. Although I've got more work to do right now than hours in the day, I'm playing with an idea that involves small amounts of wool from a number of breeds of sheep. I've done this kind of thing before. I start following a thread of curiosity and I can't stop (nor do I want to, really). I spent the past few days reading Peter Wade-Martins' The Manx Loghtan Story. It was not easy to get my hands on a copy of that book, and I only have it temporarily.

One batch that arrived recently (not the Romeldale, the Rambouillet, or the Tunis) suggests that I'll be at least considering getting a pair of Viking combs at the Wool Market. I have English combs and Louet mini-combs, and I could make do with them. This particular fiber is so springy and appealing . . . and open, and long . . . that I don't want to have to make do when I'm preparing it. The mini-combs are too small and the English combs will turn too much of this fiber into waste. Neither set of tools would do it justice.

And if there's anything important about playing with varieties of wool, it's doing justice to their unique qualities. Otherwise I might as well be working with the woolly equivalent of pasteurized process cheese food.