Washing Wool and the War against Felt

Got a comment on washing wool in hot water and so I thought I would discuss the basic kit you need to turn smelly, mucky raw fleeces into something that is workable.

The first person who taught me to spin wool (June from Aberfoyle Spinners) insisted on spinning in the grease. I have done this on occasion but I decided to give up on the benefits of this method to the more troublesome practice of spinning cleaned woolen fleeces. I have not yet purchased cleaned wool, instead I usually buy a quantity of raw fleeces and clean them myself. The first step is skirting the fleece and removing the mucky bits, the slubs produced by second blows, and the obvious planty parts. I have found that shaking out a fleece is a good method of getting the larger particles out. Cleaning a raw fleece is really a war of attrition against everything that the sheep has managed to stick into its wooly coat in between shearings. You will never get rid of everything. I have occasionally found straw sticking out of a yarn while plying, A small piece which survived the whole cleaning and spinning process. Don’t worry about it too much – you are simply retaining the homemade charm of the yarn.

June worked only with raw fleeces, opening up the tips with a small Ashford mini carder. This does have a lot of advantages, the lack of washing and drying before spinning, means that the fleece has no opportunities to start felting.

The washing of fleece for spinning really is an adventure in anti-felting. Everything the felter does to produce their lovely fluffy little wooly products is exactly what you should not do when cleaning your raw fleece. The felter will rub their wool together, change up the temperature and agitate the fleece to get it to tightly felt.

So, we do the opposite. Use hot water and soap (like the felter) but do not agitate or rub the fleece. I usually leave the fleece in an initial soak for roughly twenty minutes. Fill another tub with soap and send it into second wash. The first washtub is dumped down the toilet, since this is not a liquid you want near your bathtub enamel (or your drains). After the fleece has been soaking for twenty minutes, a third tub is used for rinsing. I rarely use three tubs, normally just swapping between two tubs.

I have been told to squeeze out the fleece like a sponge after the rinse. I have opted to minimize any felting movements and instead lay a couple rods across the tub to raise the fleece up and let it drip. When the wool has stopped dripping, I load it into a cloth bag and take it outside to spin it dry. You need to watch that you don’t injure your elbow or shoulder, but a minute of wizzing the bag around leaves the wool dry enough to be left on top of a radiator. I use a towel and drying rack to keep the wool from direct contact with the heat.

Finally, I have found a pair of rubber gloves that have helped a great deal. They are lined with a cotton fabric and really help in working with very hot water. Eventually the heat will start to work its way through but they have meant I can work at much higher water temperatures than I could without them.