Wash Day

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day. I decided to wash up a couple fleeces -- a shaela Shetland fleece and the white Icelandic fleece I bought at Shepherd's Harvest.

I've read that people soak raw fleeces in cold water before washing.  They say it makes washing the fleece so much easier/faster.  So I gave it a try. I put the laundry tub from my felting studio next to the garden so that the dirty fleece water could be used for the newly planted garden.

Filled it with cold water from the garden hose and added the raw fleece. Let it soak and drained it out. 

The result?  Yes, both the Shetland fleece and the Icelandic fleece washed up with one round of Dawn and just one rinse.

I decided to do it again on Monday with my precious white BFL fleeces. But this time I put the laundry tub right in the garden so the water would easily reach my plantings.

The trouble started when I multi-tasked, tending to the sheep while filling the tub.  Got back to find the tub overflowing and tilting somewhat in the wet soil. Like a dummy I went ahead and put the two white BFL fleeces in. Then off I went to the art group for a few hours. Had a great time visiting with my friends.

When I got home, I noticed the laundry tub was sitting outside of the garden fence with the BFL fleece inside.  Oh NO, the tub had fallen over and the fleece fell out onto the tilled up garden soil!  What a mess!  Stan was home and just picked it all up and put it back in the laundry tub, garden soil and all.

After an additional cold water rinse to get the MUD out, it took THREE washes in hot water with Dawn to finally got those fleeces white again.

I'm so glad I saved the Harwell's fleece to be done separately (click on the photo above to can see it laid on on the table in the background).  I'm thinking of felting his raw fleece like I did those two Shetland fleeces. Since BFL fleeces are harder to clean than Shetland fleeces, I was thinking the cool rinse thing might be a good idea to get rid of some of the dirt before felting it. But I sure won't put it IN the garden again!