Spinning my wheels
Yesterday, I got a box of Gotland wool–2 pounds of it. It’s got a nice mix of dark and light grays, but . . . you must remember this is my first introduction to raw fiber . . . kind of stinky! Still, all very exciting.
Being that it’s Saturday and the one day of the week I get to go fun and exciting places, I dragged Mom with me today to “The Spinnery” in Frenchtown NJ–about the only spinning store I know of in the entire state. It’s about an hour’s drive, so it wasn’t quite as far as I was afraid it would be.
First, it’s a lovely store–nice layout, lots of books and magazines as well as things for knitters, spinners, weavers, and dyers (though obviously in different proportions). Big, sunny windows, baskets of yarn, baskets of roving, baskets of handspun yarns . . . nice. There was a beginner’s spinning class going on when we got there–all about carding your wool, at the point we were there. (They obviously like to begin at the beginning there!) A non-handy woman came in with a handwoven blanket that her new dog, um, ate, asking if there was anything they could do–and the owner left the spinning lesson to say that they would try. (I believe the woman’s mother made the blanket and she wanted to get it fixed before she noticed.) It was very nice of them, I thought, to help. Nice, inviting place.
The bad news, though, is that they didn’t have either of the two things I really wanted to buy today–wool combs and some kind of fleece wash. (You remember the stinky Gotland from the beginning of this post, don’t you?) The woman behind the counter offered to order combs for me, but well, who knows when I’ll get down that way again, so I thanked her and said I’d order them on the internet. I picked up a maintenance kit for my spinning wheel–just to have the chance to buy something–and that was that.
Tonight, after supper, I decided that I couldn’t stand that box of wool sitting in the kitchen any longer, and so put the wool in two net, sweater-washing bags, filled the washing machine with hot water and some dishwashing detergent, added the wool and let soak . . . Yuck! Dark brown water. Blech . . . Empty, spin, repeat . . . ick. Still brown water AND a residue at the bottom of the machine. (I really don’t want to think about what that was . . . I’m going to tell myself it was mud and just move mentally onward.)
Anyway, 5 repeats later, the water was still brown and I’d succeeded in emptying our hot water heater of all its hot water. (Meaning no shower for me tonight!) Frustrating, and I’m not sure what else to do here. . . . but in the meantime, the bags of wool are on the guest room floor (with a gate blocking the door so Chappy doesn’t go in and roll on them). The wool is definitely cleanER, but . . . if the water looks like tea it can’t actually be clean! This whole “raw-wool” thing is new to me, of course, but so far . . . well . . . buying roving is much, much easier!
I didn’t get any work done on my pi-shawl tonight–I figured I was on the last row before the edging, and it would be prudent to pick an edging pattern FIRST so that I would know where I needed to be in terms of right-side/wrong-side in relation to which side the edging’s, er, edge is on in relation to the actual shawl so that it all comes out right. (Believe me, it made sense in my head, anyway!) Besides which, all that wool-washing and driving wore me out!
And, oh yes, my lungs feel better today (that Vicks Vapo-Steam is wonderful stuff) . . . not perfect, but definitely better than yesterday. Which is good, you know, because I pretty much felt lousy last night . . .
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I use Dawn dishwasing liquid to wash fleeces. It works great; Dawn is famous for cutting grease, and it kinda smells good when it’s dry.
I agreee with Terri - dawn is great stuff and is actually very similar chemically to more expensive wool cleaners (in it’s original formula) as it is a surfactant and not a “soap” . Keep washing - it will eventually come clean - and you may actually grow to love that sheepy smell, I know I have. The fleece looks great though - I’ve been looking for something in that very color myself. Wish there was somewhere here that I could actually see raw fleeces before buying. Let me know which wool combs you buy when you decide - I’m hunting for some myself but want to really think about it hard before plunking down my fiber money.
I wonder if we’d be like that if we’d never had a wash in our lives! It’s all very rural this fleece stuff isn’t it, great fun though. I’ll be interested to see how you get on with it though, in the meanwhile I’ll stick to my tops!