Back in June Abbey and I went out to Merce’s to wash some wool. I bought a whole fleece at last year’s Wool Fest that needed cleaned. Abbey blogged about the day on her blog.

Merce and I get ready to start the washing.

Abbey was decked out in her sun gear and prepped and fluffed the wool for us.

Merce lives off grid too so I was particularly interested in learning her technique. She has three wash tubs, each heated on a propane fueled burner. Candy thermometers are placed on the side of each tub to monitor the temparture.

The first bin is the soap wash, the second and third ones are for rinsing.

Special gloves are used since the temperature is so hot. I want to say it was 150 degrees? Here’s my dirty fleece:

Abbey was teasing me about something so I retaliated with dirty water flicking.

Between tub two and three we put the fleece on a screen to prep it for the wringer.

The wringer squeezes out excess water without felting the wool.

My fleece was dark brown when I bought it at the Wool Fest. After washing it’s now a heathered brown/gray.

Me with my fleece:

Now I get to spin it up!