Many, many years ago, it was my job to tag (remove the clods of manure and hay hanging off the edges of) sheep fleeces so that they could be packed into large burlap bags and sent to the Canadian Cooperative Wool Growers to be sold. I still remember how sticky my hands got from all the lanolin and how smooth they felt for days afterwards. (Nostalgia is one of the gifts of aging… of having many precious memories and undertakings in your past, LOL!!).
Today, I went to Kenzie’s place (she is one of my 4-H leaders) to help wash 3 fleeces worth of wool. In order to remove the lanolin, mild soap is used in very hot water. You do not agitate (unless you want felt, LOL!). Then it is spun dry. This can be done in a machine on spin only – but we chose to do it the natural way – and then left to air dry.
We have 1 member in our club who is working on a Fibre Arts project where she will turn raw wool into some kind of a garment or decoration. We will be hosting a felting day in the summer for all of our club members. Should be fun.
There are many steps from here to get it into a product that can be used for spinning – dying, carding, spinning and then knitting, crocheting or weaving into fabric. We will undertake some of those over the next weeks. We did not get the washing completely done today, but we’ve made a good dent in it, and sent a full bag home for Esther for her Fibre Arts project.
Here’s another picture from our day.
Even with a blurry image, you can see just how much straw and chaff there is to remove from this fleece…. lots of work picking!!
And for good measure, one of Dad and I showing sheep many, many, many years ago!!
And…. Kenzie brought out this poster that was from her Grandfather. Turns out that CSBA was distributing this poster when Dad was the General Manager and the address on the poster is for his home office in the basement of the farm in Mount Forest. Small world!!!
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