As I said, I began scouring the Amy fleece yesterday. Now it occured to me while I was filling the bathtub (where I do the majority of fiber cleaning) that the water didn't seem as hot as it ought to be. I went ahead and washed the first parts of the fleece anyway. I had changed from Dawn dish soap to Era laundry soap and thought it ought to do a good job on the fiber. Well, it DID do a wonderful job -- at getting the DIRT out -- but after spinning in the washing machine I put my hand in the fleece and found . . . lanolin! Considerably less than at first, but still a lot. To add to the fun, I noticed the water had been getting less and less warm as my wash/rinse sessions went on. On DH's suggestion I checked the water heater in the garage and found it to be on the "vacation" setting. We don't know why; perhaps it got bumped when the garbage or recycling containers were being shifted around since the water heater is right next to them. In retrospect I remembered my showers for the last few days and how I had to crank the hot water up higher than normal. At the time I thought it might have been due to the extremely cold weather we've had recently, though it had warmed up a bit by then. Anyway -- forgive my digression -- here I was with all my laundry and lingerie bags full of clean, greasy WET wool. I turned the water heater way up but hesitated to put the wool back in hot water while it was still wet for fear of shocking it into a felted mass. I know what happens when you put cold water on hot wet wool and didn't want to chance that it might work the other way, too, especially with a highly feltable fiber like merino. So I spread the damp wool out to dry and we went to a movie.
We saw "The Wrestler" starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. Excellent and all too realistic.
Out for dinner also (County Grill & Smokehouse in Yorktown/Grafton. Outstanding BBQ ribs & chicken!) and by the time we got home scouring fleece was out of the question.
This morning I filled the tub and regathered the fleece into the bags. A capful of Era into the water and in with the wool.
The milky cloudiness in the water is -- LANOLIN! Yes, the screaming hot water did the trick. I screamed when I put my hand in the water to push the bags down. No, I'm kidding about that part. I used a plastic bin lid to submerge the bags. A brief soak produced the results you see above, then a final rinse and into the washing machine to spin out. Back to the drying table and now there is soft, clean and NOT greasy fiber!
The flash didn't do justice to the color or texture of this fleece. It is as black as natural wool gets and there is no white or grey in it as the photo seems to suggest. Although as I write this I am reminded of the indigo bunting, a miraculously bright blue bird whose individual feathers are perceived as black. Nature always has a few tricks up her sleeve. Do some of the hairs appear white because of a lack of pigment? In natural light do they reflect the black of the hairs surrounding them while the camera flash reveals what the human eye cannot perceive?
YAG! I scare myself sometimes with the random and abstract musings! I will give up for now and go fondle the dry bits of fleece while I decide how to prep it for spinning. Did I mention combs? Heh.
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