Spinning in the Grease

On my recent trip to stock up on fiber supplies, one thing I bought was a bag of Corriedale. It was a hug bags of beautiful, crimpy locks and I coveted it as soon as I saw it.


When I started to spin with it, I noticed it was very much "in the grease" ---so much so it was disgusting to touch and left my hands feeling like I'd stuck them in a bowl of chilled lard. YUCK! But I spun up a little bit anyway, just to see what happened.

Later, I washed a few handfuls. The first wash was tea brown, and it took three washes an two rinses to get the lanolin out. I noticed the difference even before it dried. Can you tell the difference?

Here's another shot:

The difference is night and day. It made me rethink spinning in the grease --unless I want something waterproof. The spinning was easier with the clean fiber, and the product is definitely much nicer to the touch. It would take dye better too, of course.

To actually accomplish the washing, I decided to try out a new dishsoap. Usually I use Dawn liquid detergent for degreasing and one of the popular wool washes for final washes (Euclan, Soak, etc). I once made a terrible mistake and used the orange scented Dawn on some white fiber--it is still yellow to this day. I had recently started using the new clear Palmolive Clean + Pure for my dishes, so I decided to try that.

I'd heard Corriedale will felt fairly easily to "if you look at it wrong" so I was a bit apprehensive, but it was only a test sample, so..what the heck? I put really hot water in a bowl, added a glug of the Palmolive and dropped in the unspun fiber. I pushed it down into the water until it didn't want to float any longer and then let it sit for about ten minutes. The water was tea-brown immediately, by the way. There was a noticeable color difference when I poured the water out that first time, but the wool still felt gummy, so I repeated the wash with fresh water and detergent. A few minutes later (ten? twenty? the water was still lukewarm), I gave it the first of two rinses.

The end product was a beautiful white. I couldn't believe the difference. Apparently I was gentle enough, or perhaps the Corriedale doesn't felt as easily as I had been lead to fear, but the fiber worked up splendidly on my hand carders (New birthday present) and on my dog comb (someday I'll have real combs!). It doesn't seem to matter which tool I use to process the fiber, they both make a nice puffy cloud of fiber for spinning.

The fiber was much better behaved for spinning without the lanolin, and a little handful went a lot farther as well. I'll have to remember this for future fiber adventures. There will be times I will want the lanolin left on the fiber, but for those times I don't, it's good to know how much difference it makes.