Washing Raw Fleece - Twin Willows Farm

There is nothing quite like the feel and smell of a freshly shorn fleece, right? Let’s get serious here… that feel is grease and the smell is sweat and, delicately speaking, “dirt.” While spinning in the grease is preferred by some, most spinners want to work with clean fleece. But how do you get a fleece really clean?

This is a short how-to lesson on washing raw fleece. It works with any type, size or condition of fleece. It removes the grease and dirt but will not remove the vegetable matter (commonly referred to as VM). VM is removed during the carding and spinning processes.

Materials Needed:
Raw fleece – any breed of sheep fleece can be washed this way
Wire basket – plastic coated are my favorite, I find them at dollar stores
Dish soap – any good grease cutting dish soap will work, Ajax is my favorite
Sink, barrel or tub – large enough so the wire basket can be totally submerged

The most important ingredient in cleaning a fleece is hot water. I know, I know, I know… we’ve been taught since babyhood that wool shrinks in hot water. Well guess what? Wool does not shrink in hot water. Wool will felt (felting is what causes the shrinking of a woolen garment) with hot water and agitation. Care must be taken to never agitate the wool while in the hot water. Let me stress this again, never-ever-ever-ever agitate your wool while cleaning.

Now fill your sink, barrel or tub with the hottest water you can still put your hands in. Do not add any soap yet, just the hot water. If your basket does not have handles, or if it has only small handles, it’s a good idea to tie a length of strong string to the small handles or to the opposite sides of the basket rim. This will allow you to easily lift the basket out of the hot water. Next, fill your basket with locks of wool. You can heap the basket quite full, it will collapse drastically when wetted.

Carefully submerge your basket full of wool into the hot water. Wool doesn’t wet as easily as other fibers, so you’ll need to push the wool down into the water. Remember not to agitate! Just push down to the bottom of the sink. After the wool in completely wet, let it set for about ten minutes. The hot water will loosen the grease and let it be drained off. If the water cools too much, however, the grease may reattach to the wool fibers, so don’t leave it set longer than 15 minutes.

Lift the basket out of the water and drain the sink. Always remove the basket of wool before refilling the sink. You should never let water run into the wool because it can act as agitation and cause felting. Refill with water the same hot temperature. Working with the same temperature of water throughout the washing and rinsing process will also reduce the chances of felting your wool.

Add a goodly dollop of soap to this sink full of water. How much soap? There isn’t any hard and fast rule on this. It depends on how much fleece you’re washing at a time, how dirty it is and how hard your water is. Confusing? Yes! It’s truly a matter of trial and error. The good news is you can always do a second wash if you need more soap, and you can always do an extra rinse if you used too much. So experiment! Add the soap and swish it around until thoroughly mixed. Now add your basket full of wet wool and let it soak for another 10 minutes.

Now take a good look at your fleece before you remove it from the wash water. Are there still visible soap bubbles? If so, you shouldn’t need another wash and can move on to the rinse. If not, prepare another wash by following the last two paragraphs a second time.

To rinse your fleece, lift out the basket and drain the sink. If you can see or feel a greasy ring around the sink, take a moment and wash that down with soap so it doesn’t adhere back on the fleece during the rinse. Fill the sink back up with the same temperature hot water and submerge the basket again. Let it set for at least 5 minutes, then lift and drain the sink. If the rinse water is quite soapy, you may repeat the rinse process a second time.

That’s it! I like to hang my baskets outside, out of direct sunlight and where the wind won’t scatter them, on nice summer days. During the winter I rig up a place to hang them over the bathtub. Once the fleece is done dripping, you can scatter it out on a card table to finish drying. Wool dries slowly, so don’t be surprised if it takes a few days for larger amounts of fleece.

Twin Willows Farm - Washing Raw Fleece Basics