- Submerge wool. No agitation. Swooshing around a smidge to ensure water penetration is ok.
- Soak for 20-40 minutes
- Pour off wash water
- Rinse in progressively cooler water until rinse water runs clear (or almost clear). No dramatic temperature changes (may cause felting)
- Rinse again. Most fleeces will require a couple of rinses, but most will come clean with one wash. You might need t o repeat if fleece is very greasy (or your water wasn’t hot enough).
- Note to Septic Owners: You do not want to send a bunch of lanolin into your septic system. While you might not wash enough fleece for this to ever become an issue, a large amount of lanolin re-solidifying in your plumbing and or septic tank might be a real problem. Most of your dirt and grease is going to come out in the wash water. Water from subsequent rinses probably won’t hurt anything.
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Drying
- Spin as much water out first (washing machine works well), then dry in indirect sun (if you can find it this time of year!).
- Do not handle too much while wet, as fibers are more easily broken. An old window screen works well to provide good airflow for faster drying.
Picking
Opening locks, either
- manually (simply teasing locks apart) or
- by machine (big scary thing with spikes that swings back and forth).
This will release some VM.
Mechanical picking may damage finer fibers, though.