I took a while to get back to you because I wanted to get my old scarf out and take a pic to show you. This is a scarf my mom made as a Christmas gift to me when I was around 10. She made one for each of us 5 kids that year and they all had different color schemes. This was from our shetlands wool. The black is original color and the red was lighter whitish color dyed.
As far as I can remember we washed our wool using a soap called Lanolin Soap. It’s special for washing wool and has lanolin in it because that helps to actually remove excess lanolin from the wool itself. It’s a delicate process because if you agitate it too much it will felt.
After the washing and drying (I think we would wash several times) then it gets carded. We had hand carders and a drum also that you just cranked and that was fast and easier than the hand carding. Then we spun it on spinning wheels. Then the individual skiens of yarn were dyed if needed and then woven on a loom. My mom had a huge old fashioned loom.
My favorite yarn was the merino and Lincoln because they were super soft and the Shetland is more scratchy. But the unique thing about shetlands is that they come in all colors instead of just white or black. Our flock of 40 had all shades of browns and reds and creams and whites and of course black.
It’s a huge investment to get a good loom and spinning wheels and carders. But if you can get them then there’s so much you can do with the wool your sheep produce.
Anyways I hope that helps. I try to avoid hoarding but I wish I had some extra bags of wool lying around haha!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
