Washing the Fleece

I know a lot of people dread Mondays, but Sundays and Mondays are my days off from work, so I generally look forward to the start of the week.  Sundays are a mix of church and rest, and Mondays are the one day that I can have all day to get stuff done!

Of course...I often end up lazing away parts of the day...but oh well.  I usually get a few things done too, so I figure it evens out.  :P  

Today, I walked the dog (in the rain!), went with Dad and my older sister to look at the flooded Saco river, helped pile some firewood, ran some errands, and washed some fleece.  And swept and mopped the kitchen floor, because Thane + rain = muddy paw prints everywhere!!

(Here's the river...if I'm reading the data correctly, it peaked at about 4.5 feet above Flood Stage!!)

So anyway...while I was stacking firewood on the porch, I had to move a bunch of bags of my fleece...and I thought, "Wow, I really need to start processing this stuff!"  So I went and bought some buckets and some dish detergent and pulled off one small section of fleece to wash.  (Ignore the Collie nose...)

I probably did things all wrong...for example, I read later that you're not supposed to make the water sudsy...you're supposed to add the soap after you fill the bucket with water...oops.  

I also discovered why most of the articles recommend rubber gloves - that water is hot!  But possibly not hot enough...apparently, to dissolve the lanolin in the wool (which, if it's left behind, will make the wool sticky when it dries), you need temperatures of at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit...and 140-160 is even better!  Yikes!

Anyway....you gently dunk the wool in the soapy water (moving it around too much might make it felt, ie., turn into a solid, unusable mass) and leave it there for a half hour or forty-five minutes.  You can soak it in soapy water a couple times if it's really dirty, and then you put it into hot, clean water to soak again.  You can actually do all of this in your top-load washer, as long as you don't let it go to the agitator setting!

You have to keep moving it into clean water until the water runs clear...which took a while with this batch, because this was waste wool that I probably should have tossed, but saved in a rare fit of thriftiness.  We shall see if it's worth the effort, or if I should take up composting and add it to the pile...

It's drying now...I'll let you know how it goes.  :P  

Happy Monday!!!