Tag Archives: skirting

This is the Way We Wash Our Wool

Lots of locks and lanolin today!  Our pals Greta and Kate came to learn about washing wool, and we met new friends, Julie and Daniel who have a starter flock of Rambouillet sheep south of Fort Worth. 


They came to learn about what they had, now that their fleeces are off the sheep and in bags.  (Our shearer, Danny, did a beautiful job for them, as usual.)  Rambouillets are big sheep - their fleeces are 7-12 pounds each, right off the sheep.


And what they have is mighty fine.  Gorgeous fine wool from each of their 14 sheep.  What a pleasure to run my fingers through this beautiful greasy goodness.


We skirted one of their big fleeces, separating out the less fine areas and the really grassy parts, and selected a nice handful to wash.  We couldn't wait to see how the wool would look, clean.


A couple of hot washes and a rinse make a world of difference.  This is going to become a lot of really amazing yarn someday.  Of course, I've recommended that they send their fiber off to Lynn Snell at Spinderellas.  'Cuz I know she'd make some amazing roving or yarn out of it.


I want to be sure to tell you that they're offering lots of this year's clip for sale in its raw state.  These fleeces are very consistent all over with the kind of crimp that makes us spinners go weak in the knees.  Julie and Daniel will be up in the Plano area next weekend, so if you think you might like to buy some of this wool by the pound, (probably $10-$15/pound, depending on how vm-free it is) or by the whole fleece, let me know and I'll have Julie and Daniel drop by with some for your perusal.  I can teach you how to skirt and wash it!

I'm looking forward to getting to know our new friends better - not only are they really working on learning all about their sheep, their wool and what spinners want, but they are developing an orchard with figs, pomegranates and pears.  Wouldn't that be a great field trip?  I want to see Larry the ram, too.  He sounds like a real character.

It's so fun to hang out with new shepherds.  They have a lot to learn and a lot to share.  I'm privileged to be part of all that.


Skirting a Jacob Fleece


Samson's Fleece on the Hoof
We named this farm after the Jacob sheep we love so much, thinking that Jacobs would be the only kind of fiber animal we'd ever need.  Funny how things change, but there was good reason for us to at least begin that way.  Jacob wool grows naturally in at least two colors on the sheep's back.  You can dye it if you want, but it's awesome the way it is.  This wool is super easy to spin, and very versatile.  This primitive breed can be medium coarse to impressively soft, and everywhere in between.

Let me show you how I usually skirt my raw Jacob fleeces, to take best advantage of all its unique qualities.

First, we lay the fleece out on the screen skirting table, cut ends down.  We see what we saw on the sheep before shearing - the outside of the fleece.  We can see all the grassy areas, and the coarse, icky areas.


I work my hands all around the outer edge of the fleece, finding the places where the wool is not as soft as I'd like.  I pull out grass and burrs, super dirty parts, felted bits, and short cuts.


Around the edge of the fleece that came off the animal's back legs, we find a good-sized coarse area called the "britch."  On most sheep, this is the least desirable wool.  You can see how harsh and hairy it looks.


Once most of the bad stuff is removed, I flip the fleece over to see the cut side.  You can see that the wool is much cleaner close to the skin.  Samson has nice bright white wool and deep black wool - some Jacobs are browner or grayer than this.


The second cuts, or the tiny bits of wool that are caused by the shearer going twice over the same spot, are easy to see when they stick to the opposite colored wool.  We pick those off and toss them to the birds, for nesting material.


On a pure white sheep, we'd be done at this point.  But with these spotted Jacobs, we have a couple of options:  we can wash and blend all the wool together into a nice heathery roving that looks gray, or we can sort the wool into three different piles - the white wool, the black wool, and the wool along the color borders that is too intermingled to separate cleanly.  Samson has more white than black wool, so I'll start with the white.  In the picture above, I've started pulling the large section of white wool (lower right corner) away from the black spots, getting pretty close to the black without pulling any of the black into the white.  I use a motion I call "Pac Man hands" to pull and part the fiber into the clear color groups.   This takes time and patience.


See, now I have the largest pure white areas pulled away from the black spots.  Now, I spread the remaining fleece out and work from the inside of the black spots, making sure I don't get any white mixed in.  This leaves the wool that's just too hard to separate cleanly - a mixture of black and white.  How much wool you leave in this "mixed" group is completely up to you.  I try to work pretty fast, and I don't mind a large amount of mixed colors.


Here are my three bags full - black, white, and mixed.  These batches are ready to be washed.  When they're clean, we can continue to remove any grass or short bits that have not been separated out yet.  The mixed wool, when carded, will become a gorgeous heathered gray.  With three different colors of wool from one sheep, you can see that the possibility for natural colorwork is vast - fair isle patterns, stripes, mosaic knitting -- you name it.

If you haven't ever tried spinning or knitting with Jacob, I highly recommend giving it a go.  Your fiber fingers will shout for joy!