Wool Washing (a.k.a. removing the poop)

The Crooked Creek Farm adventure was a couple of weeks ago, at which I got just over 2 pounds of gorgeous, grey, white, and black wool. My fiance is not too fond of the smell of sheep poo (I'll admit it's not my favorite either), so I had to get through the washing "quickly" (if within about 2 weeks counts as quickly, hah).

Dana and I did a test run just a couple of days after the adventure, to get started and figure out the kinks together. Overall, it went really well, and I'm excited to work with the result! We forgot to take pictures then, so I figured I'd show what I've been up to now.

The first step from raw wool to clean, gorgeous garment is to pick any gunk out of the wool (poop, second cuttings, leafy vegetal matter, etc.). Sitting in a tub listening to podcasts, or on Dana's front porch with beer and friends, and it can go by quickly! Also, much of the vegetal matter is removed in the carding and washing process, and the poop dissolves in the wash, so I wasn't too picky about picking out the gunk, just got the largest bits.

Next is the washing. For this, Walmart buckets and dollar store laundry bags are super helpful. I started filling the buckets with the hottest water my bath could run, and adding in a few generous squirts of dish soap for the first couple of washes. The water is added to the bucket each time before the wool is introduced, since agitating the wool increases the risk of felting it. Each rinse was left sitting for 20 minutes, and the rinses weren't done until the rinse water ran clear.

The laundry bags were removed from the rinse water, squeezed to remove water, rolled up in a towel to further dry, and lastly the wool was laid out to dry in a sunny window. Once dry, it's ready for carding, spinning, and knitting!