| I have put together this page
to offer some specific advice to you about working with your icelandic wool.
If you have never had the pleasure to wash, card, spin and then knit with
this wool you are in for a treat. But there are a couple properties of
icelandic wool that you must take into consideration when washing and
dyeing. The first is that this wool will felt quite easily and the second is
that it is lower in grease then lots of breeds of sheep. Since it is lower
in grease you can get away with using lower water temps which will help
prevent felting. When I am dyeing the wool I make sure not to get the water
bath too hot or the wool will felt. I keep it under 140 degrees and usually
closer to 120 degrees. This wool does take up dyes beautifully so give it a
try. The following is the
procedure that I use to wash all my icelandic fleeces. This is not the only
way for it to be done, I am sure, but through some trial - and some
error - grin - this has worked the best for me.
I wash my wool in the bath tub (someday I
will have a nice wool wash set up in my garage - will save my back) in two
large rubbermaid totes. I use a dishwashing detergent like Dawn for my soap.
I add my skirted wool to a already filled tote - water temp is a
'comfortable to skin' hot. Do not have water running over the wool or it
will make felt. The amount of wool I wash at one time moves somewhat freely
in the bath. If it is too full it will be too hard to get it clean enough.
The first wash I let the wool soak for about 30 minutes. I then remove
the wet wool from the tote and distribute half into two pillow cases and
spin out in the washing machine to remove as much excess dirty water as
possible. While the wool is spinning out I am filling the second tote with
fresh hot water and add just a little soap (and dumping the first dirty bath
down the drain). When I add the wool to the second wash bath I pull it apart
to help the soapy water to get all through the wool. If I skip this step -
most times I need to rewash the batch because there is too much grease still
in the wool to have it commercially processed. I leave the wool in the
second wash bath for about 15 minutes. The length of the bath isnt real
critical but you dont want to wait too long or the water bath will cool down
and grease that was soluble in the warmer water will get re-deposited on the
wool. If you dont wait long enough then you dont give the wool enough time
to get wet through and let the soap and water do its thing. I remove the
wool and put in pillow cases to spin out in the washing machine after each
bath.
After two washing baths with soap I do two
rinsing baths - repeating as above but not adding the soap to the water. The
first rinse I will add a little 'glug' of vinegar to the water to help
counter act the alkaline of the detergent. Do try and maintain somewhat
consistent water temps. Not only can hot water facilitate felting but also
large differences in water temps too - so going from a hot bath to a cold
bath could also produce felt. Move wool around in the bath gently - dont
stir or agitate too much or you will also have felt.
If you are feeling nervous about turning
your beautiful locks into a clump of felt try your first attempt at washing
with just a couple ounces of wool to get a feel of it.
The up-side to having to be so careful
washing and dyeing this wool is the fact that it does felt so nicely. This
wool makes beautiful felt from wet felting methods and from needle felting
methods. You also can get some wonderful results from fulling knitted or
crochet items in the washing machine. It becomes a beautiful fabric with
quite consistent results.
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