The Queen's Gift

This spring I was infected with a case of helium hand, and voluneered to make the queens gift for my embroider's guild. The queens gift is given by the keepers of Athena's Thimble to each queen around the time she steps down, as a tribute to her and her service. I had a glorious and terrible idea for something the at the time princess might like, and therefore, under the influence of caffeine and terrible ideas, raised my hand.

I've long been inspired by this lovely bog dress: the original was woven in a contiguous tube and fastened at the shoulder by brooches. it looks a lot like a roman chiton, which frequently had decorative bands at both the folded hem and the bottom hem. I had the thought of adding wide embroidered bands at the hems. The queen's favor is based on a pictish rune stone, so there was a ready source of designs. I decided I wanted to showcase the wide variety of pictish beasties on the rune stones in the pattern, a wide trim at the bottom hem, and a narrower band across the breast featuring the princess's two tailed mermaids at the center front and back, and some celtic knotwork roses symbolizing her status as a lady of the rose.

First I had to choose a fabric and techniques. The original gown is in wool, and I wanted to use wool for this one, but light enough that she could wear it in the summer. I also wanted to use purple, which was a color reserved for royalty in ancient Ireland (according to ye ancient irish bard of incredible helpfulness, Aife, who was my adviser in all matters ancient ireland for this entire project, and saved me innumerable hours of research and dead ends. ) I decided on a summer weight, almost sheer wool and that I could dye to get the correct color. Although Lichen dying has been a long time interest of mine, a little research showed it to be problematic. Aside from the fact that lichen dyes are notoriously difficult to get light fast, there is the problem with sustainability. It's generally recommended that lichen dying only be used for small projects or samples, because harvesting destroys the plant, which does not regenerate. I decided that I could use acid dyes to achieve the color I wanted. The fabric, a white wool crepe, was donated by a very generous patron.

I decided to use mounted bands of embroidery, worked in wool on lightweight linen, both to make working the embroidery more portable and convenient, and to hide the messy backside of the work. The additional benefit is that HRH can transfer the bands to another garment if she should so wish.

Rune stones of all sorts have been a long time fascination of mine, so it was fun to have an excuse to look at a lot of them. I spent a very enjoyable afternoon stalking museum collections and saving images, I came up with a large number of different wonderful patterns and beasts. In fact the most difficult part was deciding which ones to leave off.

I drew my chosen desings on a long strip of butchers paper, 7.5 inches wide, by 96 inches long. I centered a rose with a celtic knot detail at the four quarters, and bracketed it with sea serpents front and back. Then positioned a pair of animals in each space. Some of the animals had to be slightly altered to fit the space, particularly the gryphon: who was squashed into a long narrow border space, and the merhorses: which were entwined vertically, not horizontally. I then drew on the back of the paper with a heat transfer marker. This was my first time using this method of transfer, and I'm very pleased with it for this kind of work, although the line is fairly fat, so it's not a one size fits all solution. Working with it is a lot like working with the metallic paint pens, where you shake to mix the ink, then depress the tip to start the flow. I found it had the same weakness as those pens, after a while of use the tip starts to dry up, or the ink to separate again, so you have to occasionally shake the pen up and re-depress the tip to keep the ink flowing well. After i did the first transfer, I could tell where the pen had gotten a little dry because it didn't transfer as darkly. I ended up gong over the lighter areas with my fine tip sharpie to get clearer lines. The second transfer I worked I watched to be sure the ink was going on thickly enough, and shook/re inked the tip as necessary, and got very even dark transfer lines.

 I had ordered silver thread for the detail work, and appleton's crewel wool for the bodies. I've used appleton's before and it's my favorite. very fine, very uniform. I worked the outlines in stem stitch in charcoal, which i thought would give a slightly softer look than true black, then mounted the embroidery in a hoop and started the long process of the bayuex stitch filling.

I started with the roses which I did not do in bayuex totally. I worked the edges in stem, as seen in small areas on the bayeux tapestry. Then filled the petals interior with satin stitch, and held it down with the silver metallic couched down with silk thread. I'm really liking working with better metallic thread. it's still a giant pain, but it's considerably less painful than the cheap stuff. This from Kyoto Embroidery is reasonably priced, and comes from japan in a lot of weights and colors.





Then I did the bracketing sea serpents, working the bellies in bayeux, and then filling the backs with satin and couching it down with a lattice.






Then it was on to the rest of the animals. First filling in the accent or shading areas, very small or wiggly areas with stem stitch, and blocks with more bayux (antlers are stem. colored areas are bayeux. the shading on the legs/belly was achieved by alternating threads of black and brown before couching over it with brown.






Then filling in the background color











Then repeat with the next animal.....












I had lots of help from his royal puttyness, in a supervisory and thread warming role......

     

Finally finished! 

With the hem done, I scoured the white wool crepe with dharma textile detergent (a synthrapol alternative) and got out my patent pending dying rig for large batches: a large steel garbage can, that I put on my big outdoor propane burner. I have an old shovel handle that's a perfect stirring device. I got lucky with this dye job: I was rushing, trying to watch the kids and work, and had a head cold when I did this. I made a paste with the dye powder and water, stirred in more water slowly, but neglected to strain this mixture into the dye pot. Just, dumped it in then added presoaked fabric. When I stirred? little clumps of dye all over the fabric. It hadn't all dissolved. I spent the next half an hour elbow deep in the scalding water, scrubbing little spots of undisolved dye so they'd dissolve in the hot water. Between that, and the glauber's salt I added to keep it level, amazingly the dye job is perfectly even. However, not at ALL the color I was expecting out of "purple haze." thankfully, while it's not Lichen purple, it is (as pointed out to me by BestLaurel when I panic messaged her) shoo in for tyrean purple, and very pretty. I called it a happy accident and went with it.

thankfully the bog dress is just a tube, so it's a matter of sewing rectangles together with a reversible seam (in this case flat felled). I felt rather badly for mounting this much work on a machine sewn dress, but at this point I was rapidly approaching deadline and slightly panicked, so I swallowed my scruples and moved on to mounting the hem. FirstI pinned the SNOT out of it, and machine sewed it to the bottom edge of the dress. Because my slate frame was occupied I did this on a round frame, and it DID allow the fabric to pucker a little. Lesson learned, next time just suck it up and take the other project off the slate frame (or you know, buy a second slate frame??) You just don't get as even of tension on larger projects on the circular cross stitch frames, and they don't grip evenly if you're expecting them to grip over bumpy areas (like previously embroidered figures).

then flip it up, and more pinning! Crepe is stupidly stretchy, and doesn't want to stay put)

I worked over the edges with couched silver thread. This thread comes in skeins, and I've found that toilet paper rolls, or better yet, sections of stiffer paper towel tubes, work great to wind them onto. It's big enough in diameter that the thread doesn't get kinks, and you can make a slit in the end to catch the thread, because metallic is SUPER springing and will basically leap off the roll. then I bound the top edge with a strip of blue, and sewed the edge of that down with couched silver.  At this point I called it done enough, because I wasn't sure if I started the mermaid on the top, I would be able to finish it before the event.

Front, the mermaid will be centered on the fold down portion, with a pair of
crescent moon and V rods. 

Side

Back

I was really pleased to be able to do this for the guild and for the queen! She really liked it as it was, but I did end up bringing it home to finish putting the mermaid on the front. 

The deputy guildmistress and I present the gift in court. Photo Credit Cataline la Broderesse

The best thing is having something you made make someone else happy!  (Photo credit Cataline La Broderesse) 

Spanish Traveling cloak (or the cloak of poor choices)

I decided in January that this was going to be the year when I finally entered SCA arts and sciences competitions, and to pursue that goal, I was FINALLY going to work on some more difficult fleece to garment projects. I've had a few of them lurking half researched in the corners of notebooks for a few years now. I tend to be so buried in Needs sewing, that i don't get around to doing projects that force me to work to my capacity, stretch my skills and grow as an artisan. I've been doing that in a small way, by learning new embroidery things for Athena's thimble, and it's been very satisfying, but I wanted to do it with more than embroidery, which kind of necessarily means larger scale projects. Competing gives me an excuse for that.

The first of these projects was my planned winter project for this year, a hand woven, hand embroidered hooded cloak for the husbeast to wear at chilly events like 100 minutes. My plan was to make as exact of a reproduction as possible of this "spanish style" cloak in the Germanisches National Museum.

This cloak is white twill wool, heavily fulled, embroidered with couched work in brown wool, and decorated with tassels and "bobbles" on the hood. Because white isn't a really PRACTICAL color for a cloak at events that may be say, muddy, I decided to do mine in natural brown wool with madder dyed accents.

Because I started it later than I wanted to and only had 6 weeks to work on it before the competition, I finished this with scaled back embroideries for entry into Keepers of the Central Flame, an East Kingdom arts and sciences competition that was hosted by my home barony, concordia of the snows. For that I did a VERY comprehensive write up of my research and the process. So if you want to read a 20 page research paper about it, Here's a linky! I'm hoping to finish the embroideries and enter it in the display at pennsic this summer, so keep your eyes open for "finished" pictures of the husbeast modeling it! Here's a bunch of the process photos and pictures of my display for your enjoyment. this was a real stretch project and I learned a lot. I can't WAIT to take what I've learned and start something new!

weaving in progress, you can see my measuring tool pinned to the left selvedge, just a strip of fabric a yard long that helps me keep track of larger projects.

Entire project may be hell, but that's a fine straight selvedge!

Cut from the loom, but not yet fulled.

Fulled down, I used an entire inch per foot of width in shrinkage and could've used more (or used more ends per inch in the sett to begin with.)

edge blanket stitched in weaving thread, and the 6 strand braid being applied

Starting the crossed blanket stitch hem. You can see the front facing flap that will be turned back along the line of crossed blanket stitch. This doesn't serve the usual purpose of a facing (to cover a raw edge) but rather firms up the front edge so it hangs nicely.

spacing all the "rays" which are self applique pieces, and basting them down.  I was confused. why applique something in a way in which you can't even tel lit's there? Well those pieces are all cut on the straight of the grain with the grain running vertically through the ray. sewn onto the partially bias semi circular cape, they act like a support scaffold and force it to hang evenly all the way round, and drape beautifully from the neck. 

Starting the hood marking. 

Rays all appliqued. 

This is cross stitch worked over 3 strand braid. some of the points are wonky. if I had it to do again I'd baste both sides of the rays down with the weaving thread (so it didn't have to be removed) and THEN do the cross stitch. That'd keep everything from getting funny. 

Hood totally marked and working on the couching.

Hood finished and lined with the bobbles mounted! Getting there! 

The home stretch, marking the fronts: first with prick and pounce, then with thinned whit gouache.

On the stand at competition! 

The finished hem. You can't see the stabelizing blanket stitch in the weaving thread under the crossed blanket.

Some of my display. The husbeast made me the wonderful wood display cards for my threads.

Embroidered Viking Kaftan

I decided last fall that I wanted to finally make myself a kaftan, and not only that, but I wanted to make a nice Kaftan, not just, fling something together as quickly as possible so I have something to wear. I have a shawl, I have a square plaid cloak, I can keep warm adequately at most events, but a kaftan is another layer, and more convenient in a lot of ways than a folded shawl or cloak.

while men's jackets, wrapped and belted in the style found in Hedeby, or in the case of Birka, fastened with buttons, are extensively (for viking garments) documented, women's Kaftans, or long coats, are not even a little. There are instances at birka, where silk loops, of the kind used to fasten a garment, have been found in a brooch positioned below the breasts. There was a hemmed piece of wool found running over the edge of a tortoise brooch. That and worked silver bands around the wrist area, not obviously associated with a serk, and decorative bands possibly associated with a lower hem, are about the the sum total of the evidence. Figurines are, notoriously, difficult. Women are shown wearing large triangular wraps which obscure the upper half of the clothes, leaving which layers are which at the bottom, debatable at best. But, considering the existence of a similar men's garment, and the practicality of another layer in a cold climate, it's not a far leap.

The presence of the single closure under the bust, the partially covered tortoise brooch, along with the practical difficulties of closing a garment over bulky brooch and beads, and the impracticality of covering your knife, keys, needle case, etc with a garment, argue for a sort of scooped cut away neckline, going around the broochs. This allows for the continued display of beads, and makes it possible for the chatalaine items to fall over the outer garment, thus remaining accessible. Some argue a high neckline could have been allowed to fold open, and while this is certainly possible, the shaped neckline of the hedeby mens coat, and the fact that the one fragment found over a tortoise brooch was hemmed, not folded, argues some against this.

The general consensus then, is that this was a long sleeved, calf length at least garment, with a scooped neckline, possibly trimmed with silk, held closed beneath the breasts with probably a Trefoil brooch threaded through loops. I will fully admit that this is the shakiest of all the viking garments in terms of evidence for it, and that building a full fledged garment from the very miniscule facts we have is questionable at best. Some people decline to admit such a garment even existed! But, my previous arguments about practicality stand, and I decided to make one anyway.

Having set my hand to the plow, so to speak,  I looked through my woolens, determined to use one of the larger pieces. I had a large peice of very soft grey, in a very pretty color, that I've been using as a mantle since the beginning of my little viking adventure more than three years ago. It had been in my mind to upgrade it into a kaftan for some time. But grey is very boring for a viking. They weren't much for undyed wools, and from chemical evidence liked flash and bright colors. Besides, the grey would have made a kaftan of scanty length. I also happened to have a chunk of heavy orange in plausible madder, which I quite liked ,but was too heavy, and too small to do almost anything with. That and the bag of wool threads my mom had given me, in shades of orange and red (originally intended for a color wheel that she never completed), sparked an idea: I would embroider the grey, to give it some flash, and then border it with the orange.

Of course there is the usual difficulty about large scale embroideries on viking garments, which can be argued ad naseum. I decided that I didn't care if it wasn't the purest interpretation of a garment already based on slightly dodgy evidence, and went for it. Animal themes are common in what embroidery we have remaining from the viking era, as well as in their artwork. I looked a lot of images, and decided to render a pair of my favorite birds, ravens, on the shoulders of the garment. I took the shape of the raven from a carving showing Odin with one of his birds perched on his shoulder (9th century rune stone from the isle of Mann), embellishing it from several brooches in raven form.

I particularly loved this little brass piece. it was listed as a horse harness ornament, but I was unable to find a specific date, or location for it. I loved how all the feathers had different textures in the tail. I decided to use different textures in all of the tail and wing feathers of my ravens, and try to use stitches to imitate textures found of pieces of raven jewelry.

I cut the kaftan in a very basic style similar to the hedeby coat. Straight fronts and backs with a sloped shoulder, with a center back gore, and side gores to provide fullness in the skirts. Since it's desireable to have the over layer slightly open in the front to display any decorations on the smokkr below, and since the coat didn't need to wrap like the hedeby coat, I did not use a split front gore. The sleeve has a slightly shaped head, and a underarm gusset, Because of fabric shortages the sleeve is a bit wodgy. The gosset is long and tapered at one end to give me more upper arm room, because I could fit that on the fabric I had, but not a wider upper sleeve. Considering the extremely funky piecing we've seen on some extant pieces I am going to call this totally period. Then I turned all the edges under, and whip stitched them down to finish the edges, using modern cotton thread in a matching color of grey. on a nice thick wool, it's easy to pick up the threads on the inside without your stitches showing on the outside.

I traced half of the upper back into my big sketch book, and drew one of a pair of ravens. The very vertical pose of these ravens makes them ideal to use across the shoulders, because they fit very nicely. The scale worked out so their tails end right above the tip of the back gore. Since they're not attached to odin's shoulder, I interlaced the toes for a little extra detail. You will notice the feet are staggered as in perspective view, but the same size. That's a typical feature of this period of art. I originally was going to use the curled beak you see on so many of the brooches to echo the curled toes and the swirl on the wing, but decided, as period as it is, i just don't care for it that much, and went back to the simple beak from the isle of mann carving.

Transferring it onto wool was, as usual, a lot of fun. wool is a super huge pain. I ended up measuring and marking reference points, then drawing the ravens on free hand with a fine tipped sharpie marker.

I chose to use chain stitch for the outlines. I worked the ravens on the cut out back piece before putting it together both to ensure I had enough embroidery thread to do the outlines all in once color (since I was working in a limited supply) and because then I didn't have to wrangle the whole coat around  I did not use a hoop for any of this work.  Although a hoop can be an invaluable tool, I don't generally care for using one in the first place, and particularly dislike it when working on wool. There are some situations in which it's unavoidable, but the way I work a lot of my outlining stitches make it somewhat counterproductive.

With the ravens outlined, I started on putting the kaftan together. My original plan was to use a decorative stitch both to construct and embellish. I had used van dyke stitch to construct a hood for Kitten earlier in the year, and it had both gone quickly and looked pretty. Since I was using one of the cousins of that stitch for this I decided to work it the same way. I ran the first half of the center back gore, from the point down. The ends didn't line up. This was odd, but I decided I hadn't measured correctly, and started the other side, working from the point down as well. This time the OTHER edge was longer. This was clearly not an issue of mis measurement. I laid the piece out flat on the floor, and the issue was clear to behold: the stitching was pulling up one side of the work as I went. Since I had worked both sides tip down, one seam had pulled up the gore, the other side the back of the kaftan. it was terrible and rumply, and steaming wasn't going to solve it. At this point the whole thing went into bad project time out for a few months.

Once I was over sulking and wanting to kick things. I took out all the stitching I had done, carefully, so I could re-use the wool thread (remember limited thread and no way to get more!) and (grumpily) basted all the seams. Then I went back and worked all the seams in the decorative stitch. It was really hard to get this as even as I wanted it to be, and I'm still not entirely happy with the outcome. I love the look of the stitch but don't love how un tidily I ended up working it.

Working the decorative stitch is a two step process.

I finished all my tails by the simple expedient of working a few split stitches on the seam allowance then running the tail under a short ways.

In between running the seams I worked on the ravens, being sure that all of the colors of thread used in the seams were also represented in the embroidery on the back. I used a feather texture worked in cloister stitch, a couched lattice work, spiraling split stitch on the lower beak, and bayeux stitch on the upper beak. I needed one more texture. I decided to run a series of tall and short osberg loops down the last feather to recreate the stamped circles used on a number of the brooches.

The first step of osberg loop stitch: pin all those loops!
(so many pins)

The bodies of the ravens looked empty and sad without any fill, after I'd filled in the feathers, so I used spirals to loosely fill in some of the upper bodies and sort of flying wedges of couched thread in the spiral of the wings. Again, textures taken off pieces of raven jewelry, which had knotwork or circles worked to fill in the bodies or portions of the body.

Finished ravens! 

Once I had run all the seams on the body, I had to attach the trim to the bottom. I had cut wedges and rectangles that continued the shape of the pieces of the main coat, I sewed them together and felled the edges down with white wool handspun.

 I sewed the seams with the allowance to the outside, trimmed the grey down short, and turned the seam up over the body, where I basted it down. I covered the seam with a couched down whip cord braid.

Then I hemmed the coat with a herringbone stitch, which shows neatly on the outside as a parallel row of straight stitches. This is a documentable period technique. Actually it's the only documentable period use for herringbone, as much as we vikings love to use it over seams on the outside for the fancy.

Whip cord braiding in progress with my
improvised bobbins.

Then I edged the front opening with bands of orange, and the neck edge with orange cut on the bias, which used the last scraps of the orange. I had enough cord to cover the raw edge of the bias wool with couched cord, but whip stitched the front edges down with white wool. That made it "finished not done" and wearable in time for Edlvatten's Winter Thyng which seemed like a reasonable debut. I'm now making more whip cord braid to finish edging all of the orange, and maybe run another line around the bottom somewhere, maybe with some decorative doodles. I'd also like to embroider some rondelles around the bottom, but have to figure out the exact design for that, so this project is on the back burner for now!

Of course no images of me actually wearing the garment seem to exist, but I did get some nice ones of it in outside light to share with you. It is a lovely sweepy flowy thing, and I do enjoy wearing it. It's also VERY warm. With the addition of my mittens and hood I am warmer than in a mundane outside jacket wearing it! And of course, for a really cold day I could add a cloak on top of this, plus wool stockings under my gown and possibly nallbound socks over them and under my turnshoes for outside wear.

Tips and Tricks: Choosing and Washing Fleece

I'm currently embarked on my first fleece to garment project in a number of years, so it occurred to me that it might be a good time to write up a series of brief how to's on the process, with some of the things I've learned along the way by trial and error. I've been doing this whole spinning thing for a long time now. I think I was maybe less than twelve when I started: My mom caught me picking up little off cuts of fleece in the sheep barn at the fair, twisting them into yarn, and winding the yarn around a stick. I got a drop spindle and spinning lessons for christmas that year. I've been hooked ever since, and although I don't have as much time to devote to my spinning as I used to,  I still get through about a fleece a year most years. While you can purchase prepared fiber, I find I prefer to work from fleeces, unless I happen to stumble over some amazing dyed roving I can't resist! Fleece is more economical, and I find it very rewarding to work with.  I can pick general purpose fleece, or something for a specific project, like the romney fleece I'm working with in this series, which will grow up to be a cloak.

Medium to long staple length, good medium
Crimp. Not super fine, but not coarse. This
Romney is the vanilla of the spinning
world! 

First you have to pick your fleece! You have to kind of know what you're looking for, in terms of fiber weight, crimp, staple length, etc, so If you are newer it is good to take a fiber friend along to help you! Once you've worked with a few different fleeces you'll start to develop a feel for how different kinds of wools spin, and act as yarn when made into a finished object. You'll start to have opinions about what you like and don't like in a fleece too. I, for instance, firmly believe that the only GOOD use for merino is as bird nests. Or felt. It makes lovely felt.
 

This is my nice Romney fleece. Romney is basic, I don't
love it, but it's easy to work with, and it's suitable for the
Project I am doing. This fleece was not coated, You can see
that the tips are sunburnt because of this. 

Some things stay the same no matter what kind of fleece you're choosing:  Poke around in different parts of the bag to inspect the fleece, or ideally lay the fleece out so you can see all of it. You want to look for a fleece without a lot of Vegetable Material (VM) which is little bits of hay, dirt, weeds, and sometimes poop stuck in the fleece. You want to avoid second cuts, places where the shearer went over the same spot twice and left little short pieces that have to be laboriously picked out. And you want to look at the general condition of the fleece. it should be shiny, fairly uniform in color an  length (although some colored sheep have natural variation across their coats, or you have spotted sheep like jacobs), the ends of the locks shouldn't be matted, brittle, or gross (although they may be slightly darker or lighter in color.) The best fleeces typically come from sheep that have been coated, and it's a good practice ask if it was coated (there are always exceptions to this rule, Icelandic for instance is not typically coated, and there is very little difference in the fleece because of the long guard hairs). This protects the fleece from sun damage, dirt, and VM. Ideally the fleece should have been skirted at least some already, this means that the sections around the tail, and the belly, and parts of the legs have been taken off the fleece and discarded.  If it has not been skirted, you should pay less per pound for it, because you will have to throw some of it away (or leave it out for the birds to make nests.)

When you get your fleece home, lay it out on the floor, cut side down, and give it a good going over. remove any sections that are very short, matted, or have a lot of VM in them. Then flip it cut side up, and have a look for any second cuts that you can pick off. It's much easier to get those off now than when you're trying to card! If you've bought a fleece that hasn't been skirted yet, there may be quite a bit to come off. Don't be afraid to be brutal! You don't want to be trying to work with the crappy bits of the fleece! If you can't bear to throw it away, (do through away and bits really matted with dirt, trust me.) wash it separately and make it into dryer balls or something.

Now you're ready to wash! You need a plastic tote large enough for your fleece, and good quality hand dish soap, like dawn, or palmolive. Stick the tote in the tub, and fill it most of the way full with water that you can JUST stand to submerge your hand in. It should be uncomfortable, but not scalding. Too cold, you won't get enough of the lanolin out, too hot you scour the fleece and it ends up dry, scratchy, and brittle. Mix in a very large squirt of dish soap. More if the fleece is very greasy, less if it's fairly dry, but better a little too much than not enough. I probably squirted around 2-3 tablespoons worth into this wash. Now dump in your fleece.

Here's the tricky part! We need to wash this sucker, but:  Agitation + Soap + Hot = Felt. Felt is bad. The finer your fleece is, the thinner the individual fibers, the more prone it will be to turning into a felty mess (which will make you sad sad sad, ask me how I know.) superfine fleeces like merino or rambuilet felt practically if you look at them. So, pick a nice medium fleece to start with, and be gentle. You NEED to get the water swished through the fibers, but not rub the fibers together, or against your wash tub, so stick your hands flat on top of the fleece, push straight down until you feel resistance, but not till you squish it against the bottom of the tub, and let straight back up. Straight down, straight up. and Slowly and gently. do that all over the fleece until it's all submerged, Then leave it be. You'll want to come back a couple times and push it all down again, other than that, let it sit until the water is tepid. If you are washing a very fine fleece, First do yourself a favor and buy one that is very clean, preferably coated, then GENTLY submerge it, then don't touch it again. Better to decide that you need to wash the yarn because it's still a little oily than to have a felted mess.

Now to rinse! Dump the wool into the tub, if you have a screen to place over your drain, that's helpful, if not, use your hands to keep the wool away from the drain (Wool clogs drains evidently??? Who knew!). Let the wool drain a minute or two, then use your hands to press as much water out of it as possible. Again, you do NOT want to rub the fibers together, so you want to press down hard, release, fold/turn the fleece a little, press down till water stops running out, and repeat till most of the water is out and you have the fleece gathered up into a small mountain. Do NOT wring it, just press it against the bottom of the tub. (For a superfine fleece, you will limit this step as well). Then refill the tub with water about the same temperature as the water you just dumped out, dump the fleece back in, press it under the water, and let it sit five minutes. Repeat this process until the water runs fairly clear. There are two important considerations here: firstly, "shocking" the wool, by taking it from cold to hot or hot to cold WILL lead to felting. so keep the water an even temperature. Secondly, the more times you repeat this step, the more chance your fleece has to felt, so rinse it well, but don't be overly fussy about how "clear" clear water is. Three times was enough for this fleece, which was clean but had not been coated. Another real advantage of a fleece that's been coated (and why you may pay more for it) is that while the fleece still has plenty of lanolin in it, it has less dirt stuck to the lanolin. Less dirt = less rinsing = less chances for your fleece to felt (are you noticing a common refrain here?)

"Clear Enough" this tub has some iron stains, so the water
is a little lighter than it appears. There are no longer little
Sandy particles suspended in the water, which is the most
important sign that it's thoroughly rinsed. 

Dump it out one last time, and squeeze at least so it's not sopping, and then put it in your washing machine (the tub is a handy transport medium) run it through the "spin" cycle, and spread it out onto a rack to dry. I will note here that if you are within reasonable distance of your washing machine, you can spin it after the washing, before the first rinse. the more of that really dirty, soapy water you get out, the less times you have to rinse it. I have to trek across the house to get to the washer, and this isn't a superfine fleece I'm hyper concerned about felting, so I didn't bother. If you do not have a drying rack or screen, you can lay it out on a sheet, preferably outdoors in the sun. but it will dry more slowly, and you will need to turn it several times so it does all dry. Even on a rack, like this, if the fleece is really piled up you may need to turn it so the interior dries.

Now your fleece is all ready to process for spinning! it should be soft, and shiny, and still have some oils in it. you can see that the locks haven't formed little coats of matted fibers over them, that means I've done my job right and it will be easy to pick and card for spinning. It shouldn't be oily, but it shouldn't be dry either. the lingering lanolin aids in the spinning, 

You do NOT want to stuff this back into the plastic bag! Washed fleece needs to breathe! (in fact you really shouldn't store any kind of fleece in a sealed plastic bag. Better to wash it and store it clean even if you're not going to use it right away) Old pillow cases are the best way to store fleece, Stuff it all in there (an amazing amount fits, but you don't want to compact it too much, use two if you need to!) and tie off the top with a string. I always put a tag with a description of the fleece on the tie so  I don't have to open all the bags to find the one I want. Then I store the bags in a plastic bin.

You should stick a moth repellent into the pillow case with your fleece. Cedar chips and lavender tied off in a knee high stocking work just fine, Frequently at fiber fairs you can find people selling herbal moth repellent blends loose in bulk. These are particularly nice typically, and work well. You can make sachets but honestly, a knee high stocking knotted off is easiest and works best, as it lets out the scent, keeps in even very tiny herb fragments, and doesn't stick to the wool and get all tangled.

Any of you have additional tricks/tips? Leave a comment for me! I'm always super curious about other peoples methods!