Have you any wool? YES!
A couple of weeks ago I heard about a local farmer who raises Cheviot (pronounced CHEEEV-yut)sheep for the meat. He had just had his sheep shorn and was giving away the fleeces for FREE! Another fibre nut friend and I were Johnny on the spot and drove off with a trunk full of wool.



That was the easy part. The first thing you do when you acquire a fleece is wash it, preferably before your house begins to stink of sheep poo. Some people are loath to use there washing machine and will wash it in large buckets or even the bathtub. I'm not so picky.


I wonder if the farmer would like his seven foot length of rope back.
After shaking out the loose crap, I stuff chunks of wool into three, large, mesh garment bags. Turn up the hot water tank to it's hottest setting, about 150F, and fill the washer while liberally squirting Dawn or Sunlight dish washing liquid into the water. When the washer starts to agitate I turn it off and gently plunge the three bags down into the water with an old potato masher.


There is a lot of hand washing involved too.
The water immediately turns brown. I close the lid and leave it to soak for about an hour. Then I spin out the filthy water, remove the bags and repeat the process once more. After the second soaking I fill the washer with fresh water and let it run through the cycle to clean out any residual debris in the washer and hoses. Then I fill the washer with warm water and put the bags of wool back in to rinse out the soap.



After spinning out the rinse water I take the wool outside and spread it on my drying rack where the sun and wind will dry it while I wash another load of wool. I've been at it for three days now but the weather has turned so I'll need to dry the remaining wool in the livingroom. I hope DH doesn't mind.

When I brought the wool home it weighed in at 16 lbs. I'm hoping to get 10 lbs of yarn out of it. That should keep me out of trouble for awhile.