It is just too cold to shear a goat today – it’s barely 45 degrees. I have decided to start catching up on washing mohair instead.
Normally, when I am not bags and bags and bags of mohair behind, with more bags to come as I shear, I will sit down in on a chair and pick through a fleece. I might loosen the locks a bit, and I try to remove as much VM (vegetative matter – hay, seeds, burrs) as I can before washing it.
Eh, today, I am a little antsy, and just don’t feel like sitting and picking through mohair, so I am cleaning it, one pound at a time, without doing the prep work at all.
First I soak it in hot hot water with a special detergent mixed in. Then I hand rinse it, let it drip dry a bit, and look at it – if it is still dirty, I repeat. Then, I’ll rinse in a special fiber rinse, rinse that out and spin dry it. Then it goes on wire shelving in my sun room to completely dry.
At this point, I can decide if I want to sell the locks as they are, dye them, comb the locks into hand combed top, or add it to a batt I might be making on my drum carder. I can also run it through my picker and use it or sell it in ‘cloud’ formation.
So many possibilities, so little time.
Castle Argghhh 