Hal Schibel wrote:
In the end, I don't think that I actually got the water hot enough to properly clean the wool and the reason I think this is because the wool was still super sticky, but I didn't realize that until I started trying to spin it.
Really valuable journey, learning how wool works 😊
So many have given great suggestions.
My only question is, the “stickiness” you’re describing.
Lanolin isn’t really sticky. It’s more oily, and if a little remains in the wool, it only makes the wool feel better to work with over the long term. It’s lubricating for ones fingers..
Where stickiness sometimes shows up is in an individual sheep’s wool (it’s not by breed) when they have something which is known in layman’s terms as “scurf”.
Scurf is a fungal type skin condition and it usually affects one or two or a small number of animals in a flock - not usually the whole flock.
It’s not something that can be washed out.
And it’s sometimes difficult to tell before washing if it’s even there. Sometimes it shows up as a yellow color. But there are benign reasons for yellow coloring too, so that’s not a reliable indicator.
So for knitting, spinning, weaving. making clothing and so forth, wool with “scurf” in it, isn’t useable.
The wool can still be used for composting, insulation, etc though.
So I’m not sure if that is what you’re dealing with, but knowing this info is good anyway, on your wool experiences…
Here is a brief video I found on Scurf:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d3pR9X5Vsj4
