Fiber Monday - Washing and dyeing

July 24, 2023

Since the scouring agent I ordered arrived and because the weather was so nice, I decided this was a good weekend to get a start on processing the raw wool I have been stock piling. (Don't worry, we'll get to share in the stupid hot weather this week.)

First the scouring (which is a fancy fiber way of saying washing the raw wool to get out the dirt and lanolin). I have washed nearly all the Shetland that I have, so felt as though that could wait. But there was the 5+ pounds of merino and the 7+ pounds of Clun Forest kicking around. I hadn't even opened the box the Club First came in to look at it.

(Okay, a digression. The Club Forest was shipped in a large box that had contained diapers. I was out when it arrived, and J. sent me a picture of a large box of diapers that had come in the mail asking if I had forgotten to tell him something. I was so confused that someone was sending us diapers. Then J. said it was probably the wool I had ordered and all became clear. What's funny is that J. had remembered about the wool, but I hadn't. And since I never opened to be sure, it was nice to discover it was actually wool and not diapers.)

These, the merino and the Clun Forest are very different fleeces. I find it endlessly fascinating, so I hope you do, too, because I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

First the Clun Forest. Here is a bit of it raw.

This is very fluffy wool. There is some crimp in the locks, but it is far more cloud like than other wools. This wasn't horribly dirty, but the yellowish tint is the lanolin.

I absolutely love how this washer up.

Look how white and fluffy this is! I'm already thinking that I want it to be a thicker, squishier yarn than I normally spin. I probably have enough to make multiple sweaters. Seven plus pounds of wool is a lot of fiber.

Now to the merino.

Can you see the difference? This is a very fine fleece. Fine in this context meaning soft and non-irritating. It's micron count is probably less than 20, which means it can be worn next to the skin without problem. It also means that it is far more delicate than the Clun Forest and would be very easy to felt.

The sample I washed is still drying, but while I didn't felt it, I'm also not quite sure I got it as clean as I'd like. I'll do some sampling and see if I need to change how I'm going to wash it.

I also spent some time working on the alpaca fleece a friend sent me last year. I had dyed and spun some, but what I really needed to do was sort through the whole thing and take out the guard hairs and short cuts. Here's what was left.

That's half of an industrial garbage bag. It's a lot of fluff and it is incredibly soft.

Alpaca doesn't have lanolin so it only needs a quick wash, which can be done while it's being dyed. I'll probably leave some its natural color, but I want to blend that with dyed fiber. I experimented with blue.

This is still wet and the flash on my phone does odd things to color, but there is definitely some blue in there. I won't really know how it turned out until it fully dries.

I did one other batch of dyeing.

This is more Shetland and the dye color is 'duckling', which I am loving. You can see the fiber structure of the Shetland is different again from the other two.

Along with the wool, I dyed some mini-skeins.

There's one silk and two wool. The reason for the mini-skeins is because at the warp painting class the teacher had the most amazing set of mini-skeins in an array of colors for matching when doing dyeing. I loved them. My teacher gave me some tips for creating my own, so this is my beginning.

Here is what I have so far.