Hi everyone

I just joined In the Spin and am a spinner of some 6 months- yep, very new I know.

I have come to the conclusion that I just love spinning raw, unwashed wool. The less work I do on prep the better. I just want to spin. I wash the yarn after it is spun and dye it straight after, while it is still wet. All in one process. I have been fortunate enough to buy some beautiful merino-x fleeces and had a red and a black alpaca fleeces given to me.

I also love art yarn, but I can find absolutely nothing in the internet about spinning art yarn from raw unwashed fleece. Why is that? Does nobody do this at all? Has anyone in this group done this? I would love to hear from you how you did it and what you did. TIA. Have a happy New Year.

Comments

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 19:25

mneligh

A lot of the art yarn spinners start from raw locks.  Some types of corespun, hives, and wolf yarn all require locks.  I generally wash my locks ahead of time, but that is me.  I also prefer to dye in the wool, rather than in the yarn, because I can can control color placement most accurately that way.  I like my red, for example, to be three different shades of red blended together before carding.

I use a picker and a carder for some preps, hand cards and combs for others.

How much I wash it depends on how long its been sitting in the grease and how dirty the fleece is.  If it's a clean fleece fresh off the sheep I might not wash it (I never wash alpaca), but generally rinse it with a garden hose and let it dry in the sun.  I love sun-warmed fresh fllece.  If its been sitting more than 3 weeks or if it's really dirty I scour it.  Like for everything else, I say "it depends".

I should say that I am not primarily an art yarn spinner. I do a few pounds of it a year to keep my daughter happy and to entertain myself.  I'm about to start another batch of boucle but have not mastered wolf yarns, although I can do most of the other techniques shown in books, if that indicates my skill level.  I spin mostly to weave.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 15:40

barleycorn

A word of caution...you have to be very careful spinning wool in the raw because you may be exposed to anthrax, a natural bacteria in hooved animals. It's the same anthrax that bioterrorists use. It's rare, but does exist, mostly in other countries but Florida had a few cases in 2001.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 17:38

Sara von Tresckow

I also love spinning directly from fleeces - I usually cold soak and rinse the dark ones and do a short soapy wash on the white ones, leaving quite a bit of grease behind and not disturbing the lock structure.

Fleeces like this want to spin finer, very even yarns. To get creative lumpy bumpy, more prep is needed. Seems counterintuitive, but since the art yarns need thick bundles of fiber - at least in places - and spinning from the unprepped fleece tends to deliver a consistent amount of a thin fiber strand. It is somewhat more difficult to get the thick places right.

I learned to spin in Germany in the late 1970's and the older women who still did it processed their fleeces that way - washed on the sheep or by cold soak - and then spun into fine sock yarn (3-ply for a 2.5mm needle). The younger spinners doing the thick and thin yarn popular at the time truly needed thick, well prepared roving to achieve the results.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 18:05

sandra.eberhar…

Anthrax is not a naturally occuring organism in hooved animals in the US.  It is found (very, very rarely) in arid, hot areas of the US that were routes of cattle drives.  All of the recent cases of anthrax in the US have been the result of efforts to use the organism as a weapon, uncluding the cases in Florida.  When these cases occured,  it seemed that everybody I ran into that knew what I did (I'm a microbiologist) wanted to know about anthrax and what the risk was.  The CDC did a poor job of educating the public that this is not a disease that you might run into.  It is more common in the arid grasslands of Africa, which is why you can't bring objects made of hide into the US from Africa.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 18:29

barleycorn

Big White Sofa Dog, thanks for clearing this up for me. I first heard it mentioned on a video by Norman Kennedy, FROM WOOL TO WAULKING and did a little internet research. I have since been a little nervous to bring raw sheep fleece inside the house to wash.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 20:31

sandra.eberhar…

When the cases in Florida and the letter bombs surfaced, the CDC should have come forward with a public statement about what anthrax is and where it is found.  Many people thought that it was a common organism that you could run into. There are lots of microorganisms that are common comensuals in people and animals; they can live with us, on us or in us with no ill effects, and many are beneficial.  Anthrax is not.  It is pathenogenic, and an animal that is carrying it is sick and will die.  It is extremely uncommon in this country, and one reason why is the restriction on importation of animals and animal products from areas that it is found it.  

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 01:02

ChrisLouise

Thank you for that. That is valuable information which I will take on board. :)

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 01:06

ChrisLouise

Thank you for that mneligh. Youtube has nothing , I will try Interweave Press. :)

Thu, 04/05/2018 - 01:31

Oregon Weaver

Hello Sara,

I have acquired some Lincoln fleeces that are clean, but have some rather weathered tips. I like the feel of the raw fleeces,  and have read about cold soaking. Can you tell me, do you soak wool overnight or just a few hours? Is there a particular type of fleece that works best for cold soaking ? Do you add soap to the cold soaking ?

Thank you, Kathryn 

 

 

 

Thu, 04/05/2018 - 04:20

Sara von Tresckow

Kathryn,

Lincoln is one of the fleeces nicely suited to the cold soak. I leave the wool in the water overnight or up to 24 hours depending on how dried and caked any dirt might be. Then rinse well - the water will be coffee brown to start. Then just pull it apart and start spinning. You'll learn quickly just how it needs to be parted or fluffed up to create your desired yarn.

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