A Box of Heaven

(Originally posted on WP 7/28/20.)

As I began to open the box, *it* wafted up towards me.  My heart began to race. I caught my breath.  Lanolin! Fleece! Cotswold!

Only other handspinners could likely relate to the level of excitement and pleasure that the sight and smell of raw fleece evokes.

I love many things in this world (and have long felt that it is the best way to know God, Goddess, Higher Self, or whatever personification we are most comfortable with), but the level of pure joy that a pile of greasy, dirty wool brings…well, it’s just one of life’s many simple pleasures.

Though you wouldn’t know it to look at it, as fresh-shorn fleece is a bit of an ugly duckling, until it’s been transformed by hot water and either soap or detergent.  Now, I’ve read that soap is harder to rinse out of wool.  Paula Simmons mentions this in her classic “Spinning and Weaving with Wool”.

But I’m not really a fan of detergent. If our town water was perhaps softer, I’d only use soap to do the laundry, but have found the laundry gets dingy quickly.

I do find, though, that when hand washing, Kirk’s castile soap is unbeatable.  It cleans quickly, thoroughly, and gets even blood stains out.

I do not yet know how I will process and spin this beautiful wool, and I haven’t yet acquired any of the usual combing or carding equipment.  But I will leave that until later.  I may just get a large dog slicker brush and flick card the locks, then spin them on my Country Craftsman wheel.

Options could be a smooth worsted, a semi-worsted, or a type of wolf yarn –  a tufty boucle-like singles, from hand teased locks. I am sure the Cotswold will tell me what it *wants* to be spun as.

Ideally, I’d want to capture all the lanolin that is in these fleeces.  I always have a 4 oz bottle of lanolin on hand, to use in winter on my hands, and to add to rinse water when washing wool socks, but, why have to buy it, when it’s sitting there, trapped in all this wool?

So, I went looking for ways to do this, most of which involve boiling or simmering the wool with salt, which is said to leave the wool much drier, perhaps even ruining it. Steaming it is also mentioned, as is boiling away the wash water to concentrate the lanolin.

This was looking to be a huge palaver – lobster pot filled with wool either simmering or boiling away in the kitchen, in August, no less. Then having to let it sit there until cool, so not to shock the fibers, causing them to felt. All the while taking up a good portion of our stovetop. Like some of my other homesteading thoughts (from making soap to making jam), not all these activities are easy or practical, given space and time constraints. I’m crazy, but not that crazy, like I don't have enough to do already!

Then I read this Cast-On article mentioning that the wool soaking water is excellent fertilizer: "The soaking-bath water provides an excellent fertilizer for the plants in your yard and garden after it cools down."

And then found this site talking about using wool pellets in the garden.  So, a use for all the second cuts and other bits of wool that aren’t as suitable for yarn.

Result? I’ll just buy a bottle of lanolin when i need more and, instead, water the garden with the wool wash water and dig any useless wool bits into whichever garden bed needs the most help.

Btw, i tend to link to products on Amazon as it is the quickest and usually the easiest way to link to products, for a visual. However, I receive no income from click-throughs, so that is not why I do it!

I find Ebay can often be the best place to find used books, inexpensively, and Kirk’s castile can be found at many vitamin supply sources, like Swanson and Iherb. Webs is a great knitting and weaving supply resource for new materials, and there are many Ravelry groups  for used spinning, weaving, and knitting equipment and supplies. There are also Facebook groups with used equipment, although I am less fond of FB’s layout.

Onward.
Dawn