Saturday, January 27, 2007

Scouring a fleece

I am currently in the process of scouring an Icelandic raw fleece.

I tried to skirt it as best I can - I just ripped off the stuff that had like, black gluey buildup and turds.

There is a lot of grass and crap on it, but I am hoping I will wash most of that out.

It is hard work, and one thing that I don't think has been mentioned quite enough in all the instructions about scouring fleeces and washing fleeces and blah blah blah, is the smell.

Good lord. Barnyard+animal turd+wet wool is a really unholy combination. Sure, my hands are going to be soft, but at the expense of my olfactory sensibilities. I am not kidding, it stinks. Bad.

But I didn't realize until today that it was a white fleece (long story), which makes me excited. For the dyeing.

3 comments:

Emma said...

Wow, that certainly sounds exciting. Smelly, but exciting!

Anonymous said...

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Sarah said...

Yeah...the smell can be bad, for me it really depends on how well skirted they are first, I'll take the fleece outside first, lay it out and try to remove all the poo before washing. And, I'l shake shake shake it a bit too, to try to get bits out.

Good luck!

(Sarah, www.teleknitter.blogspot.com blogger is linking to my knitty account...)