The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Twiggy on June 17, 2013, 12:09:30 pm
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I am having my sheep sheared today. All 12 of them. South Downs. This year I want to spin my own wool but need some help. I know they need to be washed and I believe carded , ready for the wheel. I am looking for a firm who would carry out the washing and carding for me, near Essex. Any help
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Such places are few and far between. I don't know of any in your area. The usual thing is to brace yourself for the postage, then send them off somewhere - Halifax Mill near Goole, can manage a run of less than 25 kgs. If your fleeces weigh more than that after thorough skirting and dagging, then you have a couple more options, such as The Natural Fibre Co in Somerset.
Good luck with the spinning :spin: :knit:
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Thanks for your reply, I spoke to a firm who will take my fleece as long as the wool is at least two inches long, they said South Downs are short wools and maybe no good, in the autumn I need to get a new ram so was wondering what breed may suit.
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I think Southdown should have a 2" staple, once the fibres are pulled straight?
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just don't do what one of my neighbours did......asked for a complete fleece which we obliged, she then promptly put it in her washing machine :roflanim:
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umm I put my fleeces in the washing machine ;D cold water wash low res spin inside a pillow case tied with a plastic cable tie easy wash easy dry ;D
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ok maybe i should have pointed out that she put it in the machine, on its own on a normal wash/spin etc. the entire inside of the machine was one big sticky mess!
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oops ;D
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You can get dirt out but not grease under 60 degrees C......beware.....your pipes will get caked and you will block your septic tank :o :o
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No problem for septic tank its a grey water trap only as for the pipes if I run a hot water wash through after shouldn't this clean the pipes?
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I'd have thought if you wanted to spin yourself then you might as well wash and card yourself for 12 fleeces? This was recently posted on the shetland forum:
http://mozfiberlife.wordpress.com/fsm/ (http://mozfiberlife.wordpress.com/fsm/)
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It's hard work washing a dozen but it is possible. Sallyintnorth has tried the fermented suint method, but I never have. Also, you still have to wash the fleece in the usual way afterwards, so to my mind it isn't worth it. I think it also needs summer warmth to work well and a potion to start it off. It wouldn't be my first choice for a beginner but hopefully Sally will appear to give her opinion :spin:
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I never got it to work last year :(
I think there were a number of reasons. Firstly, :gloomy: :cold: and no :sunshine: - it needs to be warm for the vat to start to work. Secondly, and probably more important (since I tried the airing cupboard with a bucketful and that wasn't very successful either), the initial priming fleece needs to be a greasy one. I thought a fleece which span nicely in the grease was, by definition, greasy, but apparently not. A merino or similar would be good; I don't have anything like that. Some people say primitives are good - but Shetlands have very little grease. ??? I may see if I can pick up a really good greasy fleece at Woolfest next week and have another crack at it this year. Although the initial fleece is supposed to be dirty as well as greasy... and there shouldn't be anything dirty in the fleece sale at Woolfest...
The theory is that the initial soak with the dirty greasy fleece in a warm temperature creates a soap out of the suint (sweat), grease and dirt, and this soap cleans the initial and subsequent fleeces. It doesn't remove all the grease, so you can still spin in the grease - just clean grease! :D -, dye using a stove-top rainbow dye process, whatever, or you can wash it with your regular fleece-washing soap (Ecover is good) but you won't need to use nearly as much soap as you would if you didn't do the suint vat first.
Having failed to get a suint vat running last year, I have since been experimenting with using a cold water soak first, and have found that a lot of fleece comes pretty clean just with that. Your Gotland has come up just lovely, Pedwardine :thumbsup:; I'm going to spin it in the grease during the Tour de Fleece next month. :)
You need a bit of slipperiness to draft the fibres anyway, so if you wash all that out with soap you just have to add some oiliness back in when you come to comb or spin. However, some fleece is more dirty and really does need soap to achieve a state in which it is nice to spin. For these, I would prefer to use the suint vat as again, it does not remove all the grease, only mostly the dirt, so you get a clean fleece that still drafts nicely.
Another benefit of the suint vat is that fleece is unlikely to felt in the vat, whereas some fibres felt all too easily when getting washed in hot soapy water. Even more so when there's a lot of hay, straw etc in the fibre - the stems seem to provide the friction you'd use a bamboo mat, or bubble wrap to do if you were felting intentionally. (Ask me how I know ::))
Last year I also experimented with washing before spinning versus spinning completely raw and washing the plied yarn - and I couldn't tell the difference in the final yarns. Since our own commercial fleece spins just beautifully in the grease, and I'm not very good at carding, that's how I mostly spin our own fleece. However it also combs beautifully too, so now I have English combs I will comb some before spinning this year too. I want to experiment with making woollen yarn from the combed waste, that and felt.
Sorry, I am off on one, aren't I? :D ::)
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one of my friends spins and knits from her own fleeces and she swears by washing everything in shampoo, comes out much softer apparently
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It would be interesting to see wool fibres which had been washed in shampoo (and presumably conditioner) under a microscope. The general recommendation for wool is not to use a fabric softener before spinning, and hair conditioner I would have thought would be pretty similar. I'm wondering if it would affect all the little scales along the wool fibres, which must make the overall staple a bit rough, but are essential - helpful anyway - for wool spinning, as they catch onto eachother to hold the yarn together.
If conditioner or fabric softener is ok it would probably really help the Heb fleece I'm spinning right now - the singles is pretty hairy, although it's smooth when it's plied.
Does anyone know the detailed effect of conditioner on wool?
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There's a list of wool processors here but still need to travel or post:
http://www.smallholderseries.co.uk/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=132 (http://www.smallholderseries.co.uk/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=132)
Sally - Re Suint method. I have some Greyface dartmoor fleeces - would they be considered 'greasy' to be able to start process? (Certainly feel it)