In the Washing Machine

I am taking the raw wool from our sheep and washing it in the washing machine this time. I've washed it by hand and experienced the "romance" of that process; since it is Winter and hard to get the wool to dry outside as well as in Summer, I am doing it the indoors way. I found this very helpful article online (a pdf called "How to Wash Raw Wool in Your Washing Machine") but since I have a modern washer which 1) doesn't have a spindle in the middle and 2) refuses to fill up with hot water and just sit there (seriously, even if you pour hot water into it, it drains immediately out), I have to adapt the process.

Here is what I did:

I filled a 5 gallon bucket with HOT water from the kitchen faucet and squirted 1 oz Dr. Bronner's lavender soap in it.

I pushed the raw wool down into the water and let it stand for 2 hours.

I poured the contents of the bucket slowly into the washing machine.

I set the machine to the Rinse, Drain, and Spin cycle with Warm/Warm and spin speed set on High.

After it was done I left the wool in there and set the machine to Rinse, Drain, and Spin again with Cool/Cold and spin speed set on High.

The wool came out fluffy and nearly dry already from the high spin speed and I carried it upstairs in a laundry basket and spread it out in the bathtub to dry.


Now, bear in mind that this is coarse wool and not good for spinning. Merino wool, as she says in the article (or any wool with over a 64 micron count) felts extremely easy so you want to use extreme care with such a delicate wool. But for the wool casually sheared off a sheep for classroom use during a lesson on natural textiles... it worked just fine. And now my whole laundry room smells like lavender.