Mistress Mary Quite Contrary How Do You Scour Your Wool?

I finally finished scouring all the fleece my sister brought be at New Year's. After lots of experimenting this is what worked out best for me. If you ever decide you do your own fleece scouring experiments a free garbage bag of fleece will be MORE than enough to try out a bunch of methods.

First I do a cold water soak for about 24 hours. I was amazed the amount of gunk that settled out of the wool in just a cold bath.

Then I mix up my sudsy stuff. I think a lot of the issues people have with scouring wool with handmade soap come down to not dissolving the soap BEFORE adding it to the tub. It just won't dissolve fully that way most of the time.I use 1/2 cup of handmade soap flakes and top it with 4 cups of boiling water from the kettle. Stir it a bit and let it sit.It only takes a few minutes to dissolve completely. If it cools off it turns into a gloppy gel that still dissolves really easily in the tub but it is also kind of neat to play with.I also add something on the old fashioned side to the first soapy bath, washing soda. For me a 1/4 cut in the first bath is more than enough and doesn't seem to hurt the wool any. The second bath is just soap. I finish with a plain water and then a water/vinegar soak. I don't pour the soapy soaks down the drain, I put them outside. There's a lot of lanolin in that waste water and while it won't hurt the plants it might do a number on the pipes. Think bacon grease. I have enough plumbing issues, I'm not game to bait the tiger ( read hubby ) by gunking them up before we've saved enough to get the needed plumbing work done.