Friday, May 22, 2009

three bags full


Well, it took me three days and I used the equivalent of 150 lingere bags and 30 runs of my hot water soak cycle and about 3/4 of a bottle of the Soak wash, but the fleece is done and smells great. Three lovely bags full. I split it up into the black parts and have two grey bags full. Now I just have to begin carding.

It is very interesting to me, this whole endeavor and how much time and money I have spent doing it myself. I checked the Wellington Fibre Mills fibre processing page. They only charge $1 per pound for each wash so I could have saved myself a lot of water and time by sending the fleece to them. It probably would have been about $20 to have it washed and it took me the better part of three days. But I wouldn't have had a chance to get my hands on all of the greasy fleecy goodness and its farmyard smell and I love that part about it.

The carding part will probably be even more discouraging as Wellington Fibres says they could card it for $9 a lb. So that means $45 for it all to be carded. I figure it is going to take me about 10 to 20 hours to card it. Say I get paid $25 an hour at my job, that means it would cost from $250 to $500 if I was getting paid my regular wages to card it. That makes no sense.

I guess fibre processing places must have all kinds of super fast machines that make all of the washing, carding and spinning a snap. I still want to do it all myself, just for the sake of it...I want to be a purist though from a time and economic stand point it really makes no sense.

Let the carding begin....

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