Yes! Yarn success!

The first process into turning a freshly sheered fleece into yarn is to wash it. The wool I have was in bad need of a wash. Wool is tricky to clean though because too much movement will felt it. So I filled up the tub with hot water, put some detergent in until the water felt oily (making bubbles in the water causes problems so I didn't do that). I set the wool in after that and let it sink down and soak for awhile making sure not to let the water cool (that can cause the lanolin to clump). I gave it a couple detergent baths and then a few rinse baths until the water ran clear. The first soak made the water so brown that my daughter thought it looked like chocolate milk. Anyway, then I hung it all out to dry (not without curiosity of my neighbors).


I gathered the dry wool in Primark bags then began the picking process by pulling the fibers apart and getting miscellaneous bits of vegetable matter out to get it ready for carding. I decided to dye some of my wool that red colour that you see in the left of the picture above, my hand carders are sitting next to them. At first I thought I might have to get some wool combs for the sheep wool but I was mistaken, I can just make regular rovings out of my carded wool with no problems at all. I'm actually glad that I don't have to get wool combs because they are pretty sinister looking instruments. I would probably have to lock them away to prevent the children using them on each other as lethal weapons. Now that we're on the subject of wool combs I have a little fun fact to share after researching these vicious looking things. There is a patron saint of wool combers, Saint Blaise, he was martyred by being beaten by a set of iron wool combs and beheaded..... so he's the saint of his own instrument of torture, I found it ironic? I'm not sure if that's a usual occurrence. Anyway, I encourage you to look up wool combs in google images, it may give you a different impression of the whole wool process altogether.


So getting back on topic here, the rovings I make get spun using my hand spindle I made out of a dowel, a cup hook and a plastic holder for fishing line. I think I might make some little mittens using this yarn, then I'll be up to making kilt socks out of the white wool.