#wool processing

[ezekiellsplayground]

Little video of processing the Swedish Helsinge lamb fleece. Helsinge is a heritage breed known for it’s double coat - the inner coat (thel) is super soft and warm, whilst the outer coat (tog) is coarser and shiny. The different properties of the tog & thel make each more suited for certain applications (ie use thel for something warm and toasty for next to skin, & use tog for outwear that needs to endure weather or abraison). To separate the coats you use double tine combs and comb away until all the strong fibers are aligned so the tog can be dized out leaving the thel caught between the tines.

[livingadagio]

Ordered a large stainless steel pot and some alum because I finally got sick enough of staring at all the goldenrod in our yard, and in the field between our yard and the neighbor's house, but not having the supplies I need to try to use it for dyeing. I guess goldenrod is going to be my first attempt at dyeing wool.

Also considering trying black tea and coffee. We have curly dock all over the yard too, which is apparently supposed to make a pretty creamy tan color. Plus there is sumac everywhere around here, like literally lining the side of every road, so I might go out and gather some of that too. Yarrow too, all over the side of every road.

One of my garden beds has been completely taken over by sheep sorrel, chicory, and mustard, but I think it's too late for the sheep sorrel because I'm pretty sure you want to use the seed heads for dye? Which are already dead here (and boy am I probably going to regret letting those go to seed later, oops).

There is also so so SO much elderberry and pokeberry in the back, but from what I've read the dyes from those aren't lightfast at all so idk if they're worth bothering with? and there's also a chokecherry tree back there (with a huge pokeberry trying to suffocate the life out of it lol). We have a good amount of aster growing wild around here too but it's the blue-ish puple-y kind? Not sure if that type produces different colors or not, but I know flower color doesn't necessarily indicate dye color at all.

Also I need to find some rusty nails so I can make a DIY iron solution, but for once in my life I am not sure where tf I would find any of those at our house

[crow-crafting]

I made a thing!

Last year I bought a pair of "used" carders. Fabulously discounted, even before they were marked down.

They were, unfortunately, not in a usable condition. Despite that, I still tried to use them as is.

The tines are broad, thick, and shorter than modern carders. The leather the tines are mounted to is dry and crumbles when you touch it. When you run your fingers across the tines, they are loose and jiggle more leather dust free.

They might have been fine as decorative pieces, but i have really been looking for a pair of hand carders, and I would love to own a functional pair.

So it went onto my shelf for ten months. Occasionally, I picked them up and would think about what I could do for these carders.

Then I started looking at blending boards and wondered if they sold the cloth by itself. And it is!

Terribly unhelpful product information, but i took a couple measurements and decided it would be big enough to cover both the carders. It was a bit of a risk as it did not say the TPI, but I decided that if it was not what I wanted for this project, I could put it on my shelf for a future (inevitable) project.

The cloth arrived, and I got a TPI count of 72, which is actually what I was hoping for. A good count for medium to fine wool, I believe.

So I removed the existing carding cloth and sanded down the wood of the handles. It very much needed the sanding.

After sanding, there was a lovely woodgrain visible on the carders. I decided that staining them would help protect the wood itself, but I did not want to cover up the grain.

I chose a white oak stain that I already have and stained them.

Once they dried, I cut the cloth to shape, put glue on both the face of the carder and the back of the cloth. Then I glued them together, let them dry, then used a staple gun to really attach the cloth to the carders.

I now have functional hand carders!

[milkweedman]

Carding the moorit shetland because I need scrap wool to stuff some dog and cat toys. So all the waste is going into these toys.

I am of course using the No Fleece Left Behind method, so its nice and fast and very effective.

1. Chunk of washed fleece

2. pick out a few locks at a time. I find its easiest to look for the tips (which are typically lighter due to sun bleaching. In this case the tips are blonde). Pinch the tips and pull them out.

3. Align a few locks, orienting everything the same way. Add 2 twists and hold it at the twist.

4. Use a hand card (or other similar tool) and drag it over the tines, rotating the locks each pass. Open it up fully and remove all vm by combing it over the tines. Once one side is open, switch to the other side (the butt end of the locks rather than the tip)

5. Check it and make sure it is free of vm and looks fully opened.

6. Add to pile of carded fleece.

7. Use a thin tool (in my case a 2mm crochet hook) to remove the matt of waste wool. This can be reprocessed to remove the vm from it and get more wool. In my case I did not want to do that because--

8. Im using it to fill this chew toy for my sister's puppy. The toy is mostly handspun undyed wool and partly millspun flax twine. Should be a good puppy chew toy ? Apparently he loves the ones I made last year for new years.

[rederiswrites]

I keep forgetting to show you our drum carder and our progress with it! It keeps seeming like a large task. So instead I'll do it badly, and you ask questions all you want.

We ordered one from a small maker (Classic Carder) while we were at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, back in spring. He had to make it by hand, and deal with other orders from the event, and so it came the day before Pennsic. Too late to prepare any wool for sale at Pennsic, but perfect timing to throw it (very carefully) in the truck, and find a mentor at Pennsic. (Also just in time to avoid shipping shutdowns from the UK.)

At Pennsic, we went to all the wool processing classes, and showed people photos of our cute ancient sheep, and cleaned wool in the shop, and waited for a mentor to materialize. Honestly, this is the SCA. It was a totally valid strategy, and it worked.

This is Kri. Kri is great. She taught us so much in a couple hours, and just for love of the game. With Kri's help, we knew what we needed to know to make our first couple batts of prepared wool.

Also props to Jacob, who always puts in the time and research when it comes to buying tools. Having watched a few videos since Pennsic, I'm realizing that our carder is really nice. Motorized, with variable speed, with a separate motor for each roller so that the speeds are independently adjustable.

Here it is, slowly pulling in uncombed chunks of washed wool, and carding them into a coherent mat where the fibers mostly run the same way. Before we feed the pieces of wool into the carder, we use a flicker, which just looks like a cat brush, to open up any tangled ends and brush out matted bits.

The process is slow. This is hours of work here:

So far, we've processed only part of one fleece. Soay don't produce a lot of wool, but even so, there's a reason our ancestors spent a massive percent of their time processing fiber and spinning. Fabric is a huge commitment of cultural resources, prior to modern technology.

It is pretty fun and satisfying, though. Once we have more, I'm gonna do some wet felting.

Close-up for nerds who want a better look at the texture. It's very short staple, but really quite fine and soft. There are a smattering of white guard hairs and it's impossible to get them all out. But we love it very much.

[lazystitches]

a few days ago I got a pound of raw leicester longwool fleece in the mail. ive never processed raw wool before but I watched a few tutorials on youtube and just went for it. only washed/scoured a handful of locks to start with which made pretty much zero dent in the bag so i have a lot more work to do.

Anyway they turned out well, so today I spent some time flicking/brushing them with my cheapo dog brush to fluff them up (I dont have fiber combs) and they are soooo nice and silky.

idk how i should spin this wool yet. I was thinkin once I wash some more of it i could card them with the drum carder cuz they're too long for my hand carders. but I honestly don't think it'd do much more than what I've been already doing, aside from being able to get some large batts to work with instead of individual locks? I could spin the fluffed up locks as is or could spin them from the fold too. idk

they are very farm-scented and full of lanolin before washing, but after a few scours they are a very pretty silvery color with tan tips and no longer smell like a barn. these ones could've maybe used one more scour because they are still a tiny bit greasy but it didn't bug me that much

[tempestuousreed]

I’ve finally had some time over the holidays to work on a spinning project that’s been on the wheel for months

The wool is quite soft, but badly processed (by me), so the single has a lot of slubs in it. It was my first time processing raw fleece, and I probably didn’t have the right tools/technique, but I’d definitely like to try again at some point.

As for the yarn, I’m hoping that chain plying will fix a world of hurt. I’m planning on dyeing it and knitting with it, cause it’s just cool to go from raw wool to a finished product.

There’s still a lot left to spin though…

[mappsiemakesthings]

Hellooo yes I'd like to share some process pics!

I got myself some nice fluff (presumably vom Peter, a Coburger Fox) at the last Sheep Shearing Fest where the some members of the spinning group went.

It was pretty dirty, but fortunately my brain didn't balk this time and let me (finally!) try and wash it with potash.

Result was this:

Much cleaner, almost lanolin free, but still lots of VM. Also, a little felted.

So I combed it:

And the combing alone freed lots of plant parts to fall out, but I also picked lots out with my little tweezers.

After combing (2,3,4 times) I used my Dizz:

And the resulting clouds are just so lovely 🥺💕✨

There's still tiny bits of vm in there, and i actually try and pick them out with my tweezers before spinning because it makes the process much more enjoyable.

I do the actual spinning on my beloved cross spindle, and chainply on the fly (bc with the spindle, that's how I'll most likely get my yarn done):

So, yeah, I've been having a lot of fun with this, learning things ^_^

Also I'm grateful that I can just do this as a hobby and not a necessity, bc oh my gosh does this take a lot of time... xD