During the summer hubby and I built a warp-weighted loom for me and some days ago I begun my upgrade from drop spindles to a spinning wheel. Meaning I went and confiscated my late grannies spinning wheel from the shed it has been kept since she died couple of years ago. More of it when I get to working on cleaning it. And my precious loom certainly deserves attention. But today my agenda is washing wool.
I dragged home a cardboard box of raw wool, mainly from a black Finnish sheep. It has been sitting in the attic at least fifteen years, so I´m not altogheter sure I can salvage it.
Here we are! First I cleaned the wool by hand (and the smell was pretty ripe and sheepy, I´ll tell ya... Handling 15 year old sheep poo... mmm...)
Nice and greasy.
I love spinning raw and only lightly washed wool, but these I will wash pretty thoroughly in case there are insect eggs e.g. in the mix. Also Spinning wheel requires clean wool, if I ever get that far...
Here they are! Three buckets and three experiments.
This one has dish soap
This one Marseille soap
And this one traditional pine soap.
Water is as hot as the tap gives and all three patches soak for an hour or so.
Here´s the patch with dish soap going for rinsing. Lift ´em gently...
...And put to hot, clean water to soak for a couple of minutes.
Draining the wool without squeasing it.
The colour of the first rinsing water. I used three and the last one was kind of extra, as it was clear enough the second time.
Here´s the ingenious drying apparatus. Tomorrow I will see what becomes of it...
The wool is a trip down the memory lane, as my grandfather kept sheep, and I spent a lot of my time with them when I was little. I know how to feed newborn lambs, how to help in the lambing and know that the stupid sods follow the alpha of the herd anywhere. I´ve seen them go to a muddy river when the alpha fell there and of course they couldn´t get out. It took grandfather and my uncle to haul the dimwits out, while my job was to prevent the rest of herd following their mates down the steep bank. Luckily our herd wasn´t very big.
I helped in the lambing many times, but once I had to fly solo with the job. I think I was maybe six years old.
Grandfather (and my parents and uncle) were away and I was home with my grandmother. One of the ewes started lambing, and seemed to have some trouble. (most ewes needed help in lambing anyway, at least the first timers) Grandmother was fat and had bad feet, so I was the one who climbed in the pen and helped the lambs out with a warm towel (helps to get a grip and good for cleaning the tiny one after they are out). There were three of them.
I had a special black and horned ram, who followed me and loved petting. He was the alpha of a herd of yearling rams and had a passionate love affair with a half-brother of his. Brother was lazy, fat and unflappable white ram, who didn´t seem to mind in the slightest when my friend the fiery alpha mounted him at least once a day. Seeing yearling rams mount each other was a usual sight, but that was the only time when they seemed to have monogamous relationship. And one with a very clear roles of top and a bottom.
I miss my black ram. He had Personality and was smart for a sheep.
As grandfather died, my uncle and father gave up keeping the sheep. I was very angry, when they started downsizing the small herds by slaughtering the yearling rams. It was the logical first step, I know. The yearling rams were due to be eaten soon anyway, but grandfather had promised me my friend (and his beloved) would be spared.
Come to think of it, my wool might actually be his.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti