Processing Wool & Mohair Fleeces

Sarah, Laura, Kaitlin, and Belinda are learning how to process fleeces.

First you have to pick the fleeces and get out the largest pieces of hay and dirty wool/mohair. Then you soak them in hot soapy water and rinse, rinse, rinse, until the water runs clean. Then we take them and laty them out in drying racks so the sun and summer breezes can gently dry them.

Then we get to card the wool into bats....here is Kaitlin learning how to card with some Jacob fleece a friend gave her when she visited her farm a couple of weeks ago....

And here are some of the finished bats, while carding the fibers are all combed so they lay the same direction and make it easier for the spinner to spin into yarn.