Take one greasy fleece.......

Having had the most wonderful weather here for the last week I decided to make use of the excellent drying weather to wash some fleeces.

Most I did in a regular way - hot water, power scour, rinse, spin and dry!  But for one part of the Texel fleece acquired last week I tried a new method to me.  Dyeing a greasy fleece - sounds a bit crazy but I was assured that it worked.


Here's the Recipe.

Ingredients:

1 Greasy Fleece
A good slug of Vinegar
Five squirts of Power Scour
2 litres of warm water or to cover the fleece
Dye Powder in colours of choice

Method:

First take a large pan put about 1/2 inch of water in the bottom, add a good slug of vinegar and detergent of choice (I used Power Scour because I like it, but washing up liquid works or so I am told)  then top up with warmish water and submerged your fleece so that the water just covers the fleece when you press it down.

This roasting pan I bought in T...o and it just fits into my oven and on top of my little two ring electric hot plate.

Once the fleece is in the pan sprinkle dry dye powder over the fleece, leaving quite a lot of white.  I used a teaspoon of Landscape dye in three colours, Wombat, Wild Raspberry and Broome.  First I tried to cook it on the stove top.....

But I couldn't get an even simmer, so I popped into the oven (covered with kitchen foil) at 180C for 45mins.

 

After 45mins I left the pan in the oven to cool down until it was cool enough to handle, then rinsed using water at the same temperature as the fleece .

Here's the finished fleece clean and dyed and drying in the sun.  The water left in the pan was dirty and all the dye had been absorbed so I didn't add more fleece as the original instructions suggest.

But it worked and the fleece is ready to card or even just to flick the ends and spin from the lock!  Not sure that I would want to use this method on a really soft and expensive fleece - I am a bit of a fleece snob in that respect, I like to wash lock by lock and comb my more expensive purchase, but for a everyday fleece it is a super way of processing a greasy fleece.