I’ve learned some important things about myself and fiber processing this past week.

1. Perhaps next time when I pull the alpaca blanket out of the plastic bag that it’s been stored in for FSM knows how long, and it smells like fungus among us, to just toss it.
2. Three washes of dish soap gets out fungus, but not CAKED mud.
3. Use the sink, it sucks wiping mud out of your washer.
4. Ammonia and Vinegar are your friends.
5. Never put almost dry fleece in the dryer, even with no heat. Unless maybe you have one of those extra fancy dryers with a drying rack.
6. Maybe I don’t have the patience for proper fleece washing.
7. Snapping out locks removes any tiny little felting you may have done while washing.
8. Squish gently.
9. Next time, ask more questions when buying a fleece, coated doesn’t mean clean.
10. Matted tips are not normal for a coated fleece - it’s a sign the shepherd didn’t change coats often enough.
11. Maybe just send off my next fleece, no matter the cost. Processing fleece is suspiciously a lot like real work.

I’ll update this post with some pictures later.

One of my friends gave me an alpaca blanket (what you call an alpaca fleece) that she wasn’t going to process herself. It had been in storage for I don’t know how long, and was still dirty. And when I say dirty, I mean dirty. I found twigs (1/4″ thick), rocks, the fungus that I was afraid was going to give me a lung infection, and caked mud.

I threw well over half of it away. I couldn’t skirt it before washing it because of the fungus, I was seriously afraid I was going to get an infection. I washed it twice in my washer (no agitation allowed), wiping out the mud both times, before picking through the fleece and throwing away anything with caked mud. Then I washed it a few more times, and skirted it some more. There’s still plenty left, and it’s really nice, but wow that was a lot of work.

That got me worrying about the other fleece I bought, a CVM fleece. I had stored it dirty too, figuring I’d process it later when I knew a little more. Well, it’s really fine fleece, as fine as merino, but that’s not necessarily a bonus for a beginner. All that means is that it felts really fast. Ammonia and vinegar are your friends!

I read a tip for merino, to put ammonia in the washing water, then vinegar in the rinse water. Doing this, I only had to wash the fleece twice, with an extra rinse for good luck. And unlike the first test, I had NO felting. But I still have over half of the fleece left to process. I’m not sure I have the patience!