Getting the Grease Out

Hope y’all had a nice Thanksgiving.

We had a great meal here- The Man made his famous spatchcocked turkey, and we also enjoyed the first of our garden pumpkins, made into pie. Lots to be thankful for. 🙂

And the long weekend provided me some time to start prepping for my Expo classes in January.

Will be covering a lot of the same territory this year (fiber prep, spinning) but with different steps broken out into individual classes for more scheduling flexibility. The one new bit is Knitting with Handspun Yarn, so I need to work out the best approach to that topic.

Washing or scouring of wool is something that I’ve taught many times at the expo, and while the basics are pretty straightforward, there as so many variables (cleaning agents, temp, types of fleece, hardness of water ) and options that it can be a bit overwhelming.

While I’ve usually had good success with Dawn dish detergent and moderately hot water, I find that sometimes there are fleeces that just don’t get as clean as you’d like with the baseline procedure.

And occasionally you don’t realize how much lanolin is left in the wool until further down the project pipeline. Take my (Chone) Forest sweater vest-

After finishing the project, I realized that the yarn had a bit of waxy feel to it, and it affected the way the fabric draped. I have since re-washed the garment in hotter water to try and reclaim some fluff factor, but I think I slightly felted it in the process.

So I’m re-visiting the topic of wool washing with the hope of identifying potential grease-busting bath additives that help dislodge stubborn, waxy lanolin.

I had some yarn left from this project, and thought that might be a good place to start.

That’s waxy yarn caked in the rear, and today’s two contestants- Simple Green on the left, and ammonia on the right.

They are still drying, but both seem to have worked to some degree, and neither appears to have caused any significant damage to color or texture, so I think we’re off to a good start.

Blind texture judging, weighing, and swatching to follow-

I’ve also heard of wool washing recipes that use rubbing alcohol as a solvent. Anyone have experience with that? I’m in an experimenting kind of mood, and have some non-quite-clean-enough romeldale to play with.