Curious how we process our wool from friends and farmers?
Lay out a fleece on a table and pick out the big pieces of vegetation from the shearing floor or from the sheep's most recent tour of the meadow.
Break up the fleece into smaller bits and shake out debris and dirt
Bag up the wool in net laundry bags and place evenly in a second clothes washer to soak in hot soapy water.
Dunk and stir gently with 3-4 refills of hot water to clean and rinse the wool. Spin water out a final time.
Hand tease out the bags of wool onto a large surface to dry in fresh air and sun,
Shake out any remaining bits and parts of the remaining vegetation.
Put these wads of wool through our wool picker - a medieval torture-looking machine filled with sharp spikes that tease apart the fibers to airy fluffs that are ready for the carder.
Feed the fluffs through the 3 drum carder- a machine of rollers fitted with nail cloth to tease the fibers to run in the same direction. Wool is now ready to be spun into yarn or rubbed into felt with final washes after products are complete.
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