Romney fleece part 1
I purchased 2.73 pounds of Romney fleece at the Black Sheep Festival in Eugene Or, July 19, 2009.
Step one: Sorting
I sorted the fleece into basically three types (but I didn't see much difference between the second and third types). The locks were a muddy yellow in color with very dark tips.
First: The locks that were less than about 2.5 inches long. These I placed tip end up in two plastic oval bins that are each 9.8 inches long and 5.8 inches wide at the widest, and 2.5 inches tall. I was able to use the height of the bin to judge which locks belonged in the bins, and which were longer that that.
These locks eventually filled both pans to the point where I was firmly packing the wool sideways to allow room for the next set of locks. They were both packed fairly tightly, and I believe each one may have held about 4 ounces, although I did not weigh the wool at this point. Probably this was about one third of the entire fleece that I bought.
Second: The middle length locks, from 2.5 inches up to about 3.5 or 4 inches. These I placed in rows on a plastic bag and on a mesh bag. I ended up with several rows of these locks, which I put tip to tip across the floor of my kitchen.
Third: The longest locks. There were not very many of these. I ended up combining these with the second type. Because my book says that Romney is longer than this, and because of the small amount of fleece, I'm guessing that I received either a poor fleece or just the leftovers (perhaps legs and neck cuts?? Are there such things?) from a bigger fleece. Most of the locks were about three inches. I discarded the short bits I found, and some really dirty bits, but there wasn't much of that, perhaps two or three ounces, certainly no more than four ounces.
Step two: Washing
I started out by washing the shortest fibers. I covered the bins with tulle for one and a mesh bag for the other pulled as tightly as I could, and washed the pans in the hottest water from our tap. The bins have a solid bottom, but the sides are open so the water would circulate easily through the fiber.
I used some Dawn dish detergent. After an hour, the water was awful, and the fleece were completely white, except for the tips, which remained brown and matted together. I then washed the pans again, using more Dawn this time, and again, the water was gross, the fleece was white, except the tips, which remained brown. The I rinsed and rinsed. I left the first and maybe the second rinse water to soak, but then just rinsed over and over until the water was fairly clean.
Incidentally, once wet, the fiber condensed so that they filled only about two thirds of the pan, whereas I had had to really press them to the side to fit the final few locks in when they were dry. This did make it easier to rinse, and to check to make sure that the fibers were clean inside and not just on the edges of the fiber mass. I handled them very gently in order not to felt the fiber, but was able to separate the fibers in the middle of the pan and ascertain that these fibers were as shiny white as the edge fibers. I rinsed one of the pans in vinegar water, prior to step three.
Step three: Dying
The fiber was already wet, and I had a boatload of Koolaid at hand. So I placed the bin with the wet fiber in another container which was deeper than the bin, and dumped two packets of grape koolaid (disolved in water of course) on one end of one of the plastic bins, and two packets of yellow Koolaid in water at the other. The yellow end didn't look very yellow, so I added some yellow food coloring, which appeared red or orange from the bottle. Then I made sure that the water completely covered the fiber and microwaved it, two minutes on and two minutes rest for 12 minutes total cooking time (maybe less)(probably less). The water around the fiber was clear or slightly green (green, I didn't use green, just purple and yellow). I then let the whole thing rest and cool off slowly overnight.
Next morning, I rinsed the dyed fiber (all of the water had been absorbed and the rinse water was clear). I was amazed to find out that the dye had not penetrated to the bottom of the bin. Only the tops of the fiber had been dyed. I had been careful not to mix the dyes, so at one end the fiber was still clearly purple (on the tip ends) and the other end yellow on the tips ends. But the fiber in the bottoms of the bins did not get any dye and stayed white. Also, I was amazed to see that the purple Koolaid had evidently separated, as there were parts of the wool that were pale blue, parts green (where the blue had migrated to meet the yellow that had migrated), and some smallish parts even red. It is the most amazing stuff, as almost every fiber is multicolored. I can't wait to spin it up and find out what it will be like spun.
Step four: Drying
This is perhaps the hardest part, since it was necessary to separate the locks somewhat in order to let it dry. And it is almost impossible not to play with it at this stage. However, I tried really hard to just separate the locks, gently squeeze out as much water as possible, then towel dry the spread out locks with our super absorbent towel. The white bin of course, was drying while the other was dying, so I was able to see what awesome looking locks I had here. It seemed to dry fairly fast (one day). The dyed locks were squeezed and toweled the next morning, and also appeared dry in about one day. I have since stored them in the mesh bags (dried separately while the fiber dried on the toweling), in case they were not completely dry when I found it necessary to put them away (visiting grandchild who cannot leave the fiber alone especially when grandma is playing with fiber instead of said grandchild.)
I have started to spin with the colored parts. Stay tuned. I may even tell you about it.
