Okay remember that I said I was ordering Mohair? I hit a snag. The person who was advertising the half off special of the mohair specified it to be washed...as in no greese and no VM. What did I get? I very smelly, very dirty, fleece that has shit loads of VM in it. *faints*. I am not gonna list who I bought it from until I figure out if this is something we can work out. The person was late sending me an invoice, and late sending the fleece as I was told it would be sent out on a Tuesday...when it was actually sent out the following Friday as paypal notified me that a shipping label had been printed. HUmmmm. Well, if I got majorly ripped or if it was an honest mistake, I will post to my blog either way so everyone will know. I dunno what to think right now. I'm just plain confused!
I tried to clean some of the fleece but the grease on it is exceptionally stubborn. And the VM...my gods...I've never had a fleece with so much of it! *sigh* So I took what I had washed twice, and plopped it into the dryer to get some of the excess VM out. Well I A LOT of it came out, in fact most of it did, but it also caused it to felt some. So now I have some cleaned mohair that I have to pick apart before carding...which takes much more time to process to get it to the spinning stage. Argh. I was gonna use this fiber for making weaving threads...but I see it is a lot like Lincoln Longhair which I have plenty of and is readily available locally and for far cheaper. I will stick with the Lincoln from now on I think. I was wanting the mohair because it is known for it's exceptional luster...if there is any left after I have to abuse it to get it clean enough to spin! Even after two washings, there is still some grease left on the fleece and it is coming off on my hands. Not such a bad thing I guess since it is helping to soften my hands a bit. There's one positive!
I am making that Inkle loom. I bought the wrong hardware so I have to visit Menards again later today to exchange. I was just there this morning to get another saw because the bow saws we have will not cut the board I purchased all the way across.
Sufferin succatash!
Until next time...
Yah, mohair... goatish revenge I say.
ReplyDeleteGoat grease is actually more like a wax and takes extremly high temperature water (nigh unto boiling) and detergent to get out. I would not actually boil it, but durn near to it for the detergent wash and as near to the same temperature for the rinse. Mohair can take lot more abuse than wool of the same diameter. But, as you say, Lincoln and even Cotswold will give you the same look in the yarn. Not quite the same "halo" effect with wear as the mohair, but the lustre thing is definately in the longwools.