The Corriedale Conundrum Part 3: Three Day Soak

I am blown away… I can’t believe how white and silky the locks are! Wow! The tips are no longer glued together with urine and most bits of VM should comb out easily. I see a cloud- spun boucle yarn in my future!

The dung tags were open and the dung was unattached for the picking- which made me extremely pleased.

Oh, the possibilities!

The Rinse Water; Yuck!

… After scouring, of course. These locks will need scoured. I enjoy spinning in the grease- and I don’t mind flicking bits of VM from my fiber as I soinn- but I don’t enjoy pulling poop out of my yarn as I spin; I have to draw the line somewhere.

After the one night soak, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel but now, I am out of the tunnel!

One observation worth noting, though, is that the fleece and it’s water bath stank horribly. My husband avoided me the entire time I was rinsing and drying as a result… Yes, it was that bad!

I honestly didn’t mind it, though, because I have always loved the small of barn.

I used four- instead of three rinses- as the fleece was that filthy (as was the rinse water in the buckets). I gently removed the fleece and plopped them into filled buckets. I let the fleece soak a while in each rinse bucket prior to removing it.

After the fourth rinse, the water ran clean and so I gently squeezed the fleece and spread it out on screens to dry. It looks like it may rain today, but as I see it- a little rain will only clean it more.

Looking back, I wish that I’d used a mesh bag for the fleece; it would have made things much easier!

I have to say, too, that I love Corriedale. It seems like I could spin a lot of different textured yarns with just one Corriedale fleece- and I love the silky, soft texture of the locks.

I will keep Corriedale on my list of possible sheep to acquire when I am ready to take that next leap… I mean, step.

I am especially in love with the little ringlets- which gave rise to the boucle idea…

I love when a fleece or fiber speaks to me; it almost always has a mind and plan of its own- if only we  just listen. It will never do what it doesn’t want to do but will always cooperate when the spinner is willing to do the same.

Moving on… I am not sure whether or not I will scour all of this fleece. Some of it actually looks nice enough to spin- as is. Yes, it’s greasy- but I love the feel of sheep grease. I also love the smell.

Some bits will need scouring, combing/ flicking, etc.- but that’s OK with me. I will accept ant opportunities afforded to me by a fleece. I welcome these opportunities with open arms, as I learn so much from them. I also get better acquainted with the fleece I plan to spin- which affords me plenty of time to listen to its subtle demands and desires.

As for the suint vat, I removed the bricks and the fleece remained emerged. It was very stinky, though, and my arms (the vat is deep) and hands stunk until I washed them with Dawn soap.

The skin on my hands was nice and soft all day, though- that’s lanolin for you!

After witnessing the results of the 3- day soak, I expect great things from the suint vat- soaked fleece!

Addendum: I checked the temperature of the suint vat, as it has been chilly at night (around 50 degrees F) and hasn’t been warmer than 70 during the day. I am under the impression that the suint (fermentation) method works best at room temperature (70 degrees) and so I am a bit concerned. As with my other (nettle) experiment, the recent dip in temperature is causing some concern. I am hoping that the lower temperatures will mean a longer fermentation time rather than total failure…

Sometimes, one can only hope…

Addendum: the fleece has been drying on a wire rack but has been gently rinsed several times over by rain. Large pieces of VM (mostly hay) were easily removed; however quite a bit of the equine pine is still trapped in the locks. I have since attempted combing, flicking and carding the bits out. Combing did very little, while carding and flicking showed promise- however this method meant compromising on my desire to keep the integrity of the lock structure. It also made a mess of my cards, as the fleece has not yet been scoured.

Moreover, the dung is still very much trapped in the tips of the locks; these locks will have to be cut in order to remove the dung tags- resulting in shorter fibers.

Thus, the fleece is still un- spinnable after the soak- which was what I expected.

I have since attempted to scour the fleece twice using water (from the tap), Dawn dish soap and Borax. After scouring, I was able to easily flick 99% of the debris from the locks; however, much of the lanolin remained.

I flicked and then spun up some yarn and found that, due to the (still) high lanolin content, drafting smoothly was extremely difficult. Also, the greasy fiber picked up every minute bit of filth from my hands, table, and flicker. In the end, the yarn was a dingy grayish- blue color- not lovely at all.

While I could continue to spin up the resulting fleece and then scour it, chances are, it would be harder to remove the grease from spun yarn- thus making dyeing impossible (dye won’t adhere well to greasy fibers).

Conclusion: After a 3- day soak with Dawn dish soap and two scours, the fleece is still too greasy for my liking. I am wondering if, perhaps, my tap water isn’t hot enough to effectively remove the grease. Also, being that my water is hard, I am thinking that the mineral content may be having an effect on stripping the grease from the fleece.