World of Woolcraft

Last night after dinner my son asked me if I wanted to play the XBox game Resident Evil 5. "No." I'd rather wash wool. It occurred to me that if they designed a game that was more interesting to me I'd play XBox. Maybe a game where you had a flock of sheep and if your sheep ran away you could go to different areas (XBox Live-interactive)to get them. You could shear and sell fleece, maybe buy more sheep with the money. There could be a lambing challenge of some sort. When I told this to my son and husband they agreed that it sounds like a game I would play. My husband promptly titled it World of Woolcraft.

So instead of having bonding time with my teenager, I took my latest fleece purchase out of the box and checked it out. Nutmeg is a Shetland. I have about 2 1/2 lbs here. As I sorted through it I decided to keep the locks intact and carefully wash them.

I divided the fleece into three sections. Shorter locks with lots of crimp, long locks, and "other" which is the more tangled pieces that I'll end up carding.

I'm going to flick card the shorter locks, comb the long locks, and card the "other" locks. I'll probably dye the "other" batch also. I washed all the long locks by hand---lock by lock method. That means I dipped them in hot soapy water then rinsed them carefully under the running faucet. This actually went really fast and left them in excellent condition. I washed the shorter locks carefully in a shallow hot soapy sink and rinsed them so that the locks stayed aligned. I'm almost done with that process. While that's all drying, I'll wash and dye the "other" batch later today.