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!