Wool Preparation Part III

I am just finishing washing up some bits and pieces of the four fleeces that I bought a few weeks ago and it will be all cleaned. I did not get as much out of the fleeces as I hoped due to the amount of the waste but at least I have some that I can start to spin. Which will put me in good shape next fall.

In the past, I have got a black fleece and blended it with a white one to produce gray. A fair number of my rugs are gray included this one which I did last fall. It takes a lot of carding to blend two colours together to make a relatively consistent colour. This rug is much larger than the one that I usually do (42” X 64”) and I am not too sure what I am going to do with it. But I really like it.

One of the four fleece I bought this time is an interestingly coloured gray fleece that has a range of grays and whites in it. I am going to gently card it, trying to avoid too much blending, so that the various shades remain. It could be interesting.

I have also purchased a lot of Acid dye, which I used a few years ago and then again last year. It is sometimes nice to work with more vibrant colours than one can get by blending black and white wool. In this picture you can see the range of my weaving. Most of the rugs are approximately 30" X 42"

The two items in the top right hand are baby blankets woven using a variation of a colonial overshot pattern. I have two more that need the edging sewn on etc.

Anger and depression

I can't remember ever feeling such despair over what is happening to Mother Earth than I do right now. It is not the oil leak itself - which is bad enough- but rather it is the lack of outrage that we collectively should be demonstrating that is causing my despair . Shouldn't we be boycotting BP products (and all they sell to?)

The fact that they can say that it is not a big problem in terms of the world's oceans and the amount of water in those oceans is obscene. The fact that we let them get away with is worse.

I am not too sure what to do - but we need to stand up - and stop driving our cars or something........

Hamburger Patties and Kilts or sometimes you win…sometimes you don’t

I have been making veggie, soya, nut or some other sort of non-meat burger for the past 30+ years.  There have always been two problems with all of the versions. The taste and sometimes more importantly the texture. Or more specifically how to make them stay together long enough for them to be flipped. Of course the ultimate goal would be to make them strong enough to flipped on a BBQ.

I am pleased to announce that I am very close to the second goal the first (the taste) is much easier. Using chick peas, lots of onions (and other spices) hickory smoked almonds, non salted peanuts, sunflower seeds and walnuts and a homemade patty press I have made the near perfect burger. So simple.

The  patty press is just an empty chick pea can (with both ends cut off) , and some plastic disks cut from margarine containers. Dump in a burger size pile in the bottom can, slip down a disk and use a wine bottle to apply some pressure, repeat until can is full. Apply enough pressure on the full can until it feels right.  I then put the burgers in another container and store in the fridge. Going to try some on the BBQ next time I go see my daughter.

It feels good to have achieved a goal – no matter how small. Of course I could have bought a patty press for $15.00 at Zellars 20 years ago, but never thought about it, and besides the mixture was refined enough at that point.

On the other hand my kilt is a bust. Tried in on yesterday to measure where the straps needed to go ( the final step) and realized that I had made a fundamental error that could not be fixed and therefore it is not really wearable in public. I could have cried. The fabric was on sale so I only lost $22. But all that work for nothing….. Guess I will make some minor changes to the one I made and wore last year…. Could buy some more fabric and do another one but I am not too sure if I am the time. Oh well

Wool preparation part II

When I said  "wash the wool" –  I should have been clearer. It is really more just soaking it. One does not want to swish it around to much as it will felt and thenm of course be useless for anything.

Once I have a fleece washed – I need to card it. The traditional way is to use hand paddles and gently straighten out the fibers. I lack the patience for this and some time ago I bought a drum carder. What a great device for saving time. It is a boring process and some what tiring as I have to stand to use the carder. However it is so much easier than carding by hand I had a motor attached to the crank (Devin did it for me) and it was great until I burnt the motor out. One day I may buy a electric carder which would be even faster but in the meantime I will just keep on cranking away.

.I usually have “talking book” from the library on and so I have someone reading to me as I work away. It makes the process a little bit less painful.

The carding helps clean the fibers as well by getting rid of a fair amount of the vegetable matter. Because this year the two white fleeces are small, I will first card one fleece, then the other and finally I will blend them together in a final carding that will ensure that the wool is consistent. Hopefully this will ensure that the dye takes evenly.


When things are going well, I usually have some wool in the bucket bein washed and I am carding in the living room. At night - I hand pick/card what was washed that day. It all makes the house a mess.  It is sometimes embarrassing to look at my apartment. The tub in the bathroom is dirty, the floor is covered with bits and pieces of wool and in generally it smells of wet wool. Drifting around the living and dining room floors are small balls of wool that have somehow escaped from the bag. No matter how often I sweep, the house never looks clean.
It is a good thing I seldom have company!

Wool Preparation - Part one

One of the problems of buying a fleece in the spring is that I end up working on it when it is far too nice to be inside. However I am 1/3 of my through washing the 4th and final fleece, and I have almost finished carding the first fleece. I at times get somewhat obsessed to complete a fleece. I suspect that there is a more efficient way to get it all done, but the process that I have developed seems to work for me.

I wash the fleece in small lots – just enough to fit into a medium size pail. It usually takes one soaking with soap and then two rinses to get it clean. There is a fine line between washing it too little and the wool therefore remaining to full of lanolin to be really workable and washing all of the lanolin out which makes the wool too dry to handle.

I then roll up the wool in an towel. Once it is partially dry I lay it out on my bed and start to separate the wool. Sort of finger teasing it out so that it dries faster. I quite frequently spend my evenings playing with the wool this way. I then put it all into large bags made out of old sheer curtains to dry and to be kept clean

   newly washed wool  
This process is relaxing. Playing with the wool feels good. Unfortunately because of the quality of the wool, it can also be frustrating. Sometimes parts of the fleece are so full of seeds and bits and pieces of straw that I have to throw away huge piles of wool. Other times I come across a whole section where the wool has been cut in pieces far too short to spin ( called double cuts) It almost breaks my heart to come across a section that is soft and a wonderful colour only to find out that I can’t use it.



 wasted wool