Fiber Love-Processing Raw Wool

 

Years ago I had the chance to buy a large Rambouillet fleece 

from a farm in Nampa, Idaho.

It’s been sitting in a box in my garage 

until a couple of weeks ago when I pulled the box off of the shelf.

I stood on my driveway, sorting through the fleece,

 choosing what I wanted to keep.

A sideline thought-some people spin wool “in the grease”.

My thoughts on that are-you do you.

I’m not going to do that

 as raw wool is dirty with sheep poop, dirt and other yucky stuff.

So I scour wool before I process and spin it, 

using an environment friendly soap, Orvus.

I poured the dirty water outside, 

so that the lanolin coming off of the wool doesn’t gunk up my plumbing.

I spun small amounts of the fiber

 in a large salad spinner that I found at a thrift store to get the excess water out.

Then I put the wool outside to dry in the sunshine.

Once it’s dry, I stored the clean Rambouillet wool in paper bags.

I’ve been blending some of this wool 

with some baby alpaca, cria, fiber from a farm in Parma, Idaho.

The baby alpaca, cria, fiber is incredibly soft.

Did you know that alpaca fiber is warmer than wool 

due to it’s physical characteristics?

I’m using a wool picker to open up the fiber 

and then I run that fiber through my Patrick Green drum carder. 

Most of the vm or vegetable matter falls out at this point.

I’m creating large batts of blended Rambouillet wool and cria fiber.

Super soft, lovely batts of fiber wonderfulness. 🤗 

Now I can dream about how I want to dye it 

and what I want to knit with it…

Cheers,

Judy