Processing Our Sheep & Alpaca Wool into Yarn

Good morning Turbo, how are you doing? You guys are all staying inside. It's been getting cool. Welcome to the 10 Acre Woods. My name is Mark and in this video we are going to process wool. So we've done a few videos in the past of processing wool and the audio hadn't been so great. So I've got some new wireless mics and we are going to head in the house shortly and go through a class that we're having. So we have four alpaca and we have a number of sheep. Here's Tinker. Turbo is a favorite, aren't you buddy? And George here which was a young one from last year. So we've got his wool that we'll be processing as well. Bronwyn is a haired sheep, and she actually sheds her wool naturally every year just like the goats will shed their winter coat. So we'll head into the house and learn how we process our wool. After you shear your first, this is actually off of a little mini sheep, okay, and it looks like garbage. And this is so many people do them. The only thing that I watch for, make sure there's no bugs. If there's bugs, burn it, okay? You don't want to be messing with that and moving them around and eggs and all that kind of stuff. If you've got bugs, burn it. You'll notice that this is yellow and if you feel it, okay, it's like, you can see how shiny it is. You guys can come on in and feel that. It's, watch, we'll just do this. Look, feel that. It's soft. And then you rub your fingers together. That is lanolin, okay? So that is the best moisturizer that you could ever have. They use it in so many, what? No, that's okay. Share. Yep, totally. Yeah, it is. We're very open here. We are so open here that that is, we welcome that. You're right, number one. Right? Yeah. She's like, what are you two doing on the way home? So the first thing you want to do is you want to skirt it, okay? So you don't, you take the like big chunky poop piles because you got the poop on the, on the edges, right? I don't bother putting that through. That, it's called skirting and you go, just go around the whole outside because you don't need to do here unless that's you know, poopy section and you just take your big chunks of poop that are there and pull those off because you don't need to be processing them and melting the poop and getting it all over. And that's called skirting, right? So I'll just make sure there's no big poop things before we, now in the beginning we used great big, those actually behind you, to do the hot water in. This year we're trying something different and I quite enjoy it. The buckets, easier to empty the water. I can strain each load. I can, and it's just more manageable than trying to manipulate that. We were bending over and it just didn't work. So we've moved to the buckets. So this is a small fleece. So I would split this in half and then goes in the bucket. It's actually a lot easier than people think. Lanolin, because it's an oil, as soon as you melt it, it releases the oil and sheep wool, a lot of the wool and fibers, they don't, they don't get dirty. They hold dirt. So as soon as you release the oil, all the dirt goes out because it's the oil that's holding it there. Okay. So then once it goes in these buckets, this is alpaca. I wanted to do both. So you can feel the difference. Alpacas don't have lanolin. They don't have oil. So that's why it's light and fluffy and feels a lot different than the other one, right? Yeah. Alpaca's cool. It's harder to work with. Do you like spinning it better the way, Tiana? It does go in easier, but the stuff I'm using right now is from our first shear of our alpacas, which is probably, maybe the fibers are probably over a foot long because they hadn't been sheared for at least two years. So it's way too long than what you would normally use. So it clumps up a lot, which is a lot harder when you're spinning. Um, whereas the sheep kind of more so comes out easier. When we see those videos about degreasing ducks and geese and all that kind of stuff, the oil spills, they use Dawn dish soap. It was the best that actually Dawn is not, it's not a soap. It's just a degreaser, um, which is why it works. Um, so if you don't have an eco friendly, all natural soap, which is a degreaser, Dawn is what I used before. Um, a couple of drops cause it's very highly concentrated in there. Then I boiled water just cause it's hotter for the landline. Um, turn that on. So the sheep ones that pack is going to take more and then top it up with boiling water. Very simple. Well, hot water. Yeah. It's not boiling. Yeah. It's hot water. Okay. So that's skirting. Then you do this and then we'll, do you want to grab, I'm not sure if it's washed or if it's in here. Um, I got it. Right. Yeah. It's just landline. So then once you have it in there, give it a couple, you don't want to, um, you don't want to do this a lot because you'll felt, so you just want to move it around, get the soap kind of moving, move the heat around, move it around every five, 10 minutes. I'll do, give it a, you can see if you want to walk through, you can actually see how it's actually already released 99, 90% of the, um, so here in Canada, it's not ready, but you see how it's already released all that. And, uh, so then it'll sit in the hot water. It'll sit in the hot water for half an hour. You see how, when I pour the water, cause that was hot water. So it's actually white. So it immediately went from the yellow poop. And when you pour water on it, it immediately goes to the white and it'll be half an hour in here. And then I'll dump these, squeeze out the water and then put another batch of warm, like do it twice. Um, if you have an extremely dirty one, do it three times. Um, just make sure you're not like doing that, rubbing it too much. You just want to make sure you're just stirring it around. Um, Hanny was one of our really, really old sheep, really produced a lot of lanolin. And at this stage, when I did this, you could actually see all the lanolin foaming on the top. If you want to process and keep your lanolin, we did it one year and off of, you want to do that? Push it in there. Um, I think we got a tablespoon out of like five sheep that we did. Sorry. I just snorted on. It's not, it wasn't, it wasn't enough to cool every bucket and skim the top. And yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, if you want to try your hand at it beforehand, PV sells pure lanolin. You'll see it on the shelf over here. Um, they do have, and it's, I mean, even if you like soaps and everything are really good with the lanolin. Um, I would, I tell a lot of people I have what's called psoriasis. So dry skin's got, I mean, I understand dry skin. Um, if at one point when your feet are cracking or you have those, my knuckles will crack, um, lanolin, um, if you want it cause lanolin, Tiana, you want to go grab the lanolin? Yeah. It's, uh, it's really thick. Um, so if you're using it as a cream, then I suggest mixing it with coconut oil because coconut oil is phenomenal as well. Um, and then it just, it thick, it, it makes it more of a cream then. All right. Are we ready? So that'll sit half an hour. I find that the boiled water, especially in the sheep just adds up like a extra hot, right? Yeah. Pass that around. They can, uh, well you know, don't touch it. You stuffed it full. I did. So the lid is stuck to it. Okay. Rip it off. There you go. Okay. Everybody pass that around. Okay. Oh yeah. Thanks Ems. Hi. Hi. When you talk about when you mix it too much, you'll fleece it. What do you mean by that? Felt it. Yes. So, um, if you're, if you really play with your wool a lot, so the more you mix it, the more it condenses and squishes. So felting is like, um, uh, oh my God, how do you describe belting? Uh, matted. Matted. Yeah. Like a mat. So a dog would get a mat. That's felted because it's just overly been squished and moved around. Um, and if you mix it too much in that stage, I've never had it happen. So it's something that they say it happens. There is a process. I believe that's called wet felting, where you would put it in a tray of water and you would shake it and move it around to felt it, which is, I want to try. Cause I want to make, when you felt it in a sheet, you can make socks or you may have a fabric where you can make like a, a felted hat or it versus knitting. Right. Yeah. Um, we're going to go through the process of making like dryer balls, which are felted. Okay. Uh, that's the most common thing. Everybody loves these dryer balls. So, and they're so easy to make. Right. Um, this is Laura. Hi Laura. I'm Tara, Tiana, Marlene, and everybody else. Marlene that's Jerry over there. Mom. Oh, it's Jerry. Um, okay. So as this is sitting, um, what will happen after this, um, we'll wash it twice and then I'll rinse it under a lukewarm water. So the lanolin doesn't reset. You don't want to do it under cold cause you're just going to reset the lanolin. Right. Um, and then what'll happen is you wet pick it and then you'll feel one on this rack that is wet picked already. Okay. And then once I get to that process, then I will set you guys up with that on here once I pull it out. And then once it's dry, which is usually about two, three days with the fans going, um, then you dry pick. Okay. This feel free to get your hands on there. This is what you call dry picking. Now you'll see all the lanolin is now out of this. Okay. Um, what happens now once it's dry is we dry pick it. And when you watch, every time you go like this, you see debris falling. Okay. Every process that you do gets more and more of that debris out. Okay. So at this stage, we're going for all the lumps, make sure there's no wet spots left. And this is called picking. And then you're, so this would be like slightly felted, right? We're not, we don't want felted. So we're like just dry, but you'll notice that every stage of the processing you're losing. Yes. You don't want carpet. You want a good vacuum. Usually I'll do it over the garbage, but I ordered a picker. Um, it's literally a box with a whole bunch of nails at a certain degree angles and stuff where I can just put this in the box, move the box back and forth. And it pops out the other end, whole fluffed up. Cause I do all this by hand. Right. Um, so this will be one of the sections that we get to have fun with. Washing will be another section. Okay. Right. You just get to rip it apart. When do you get to do that? Just like, right. Just get to rip it apart. Yeah. If it's a little damp, just leave it off to the side and we'll make sure it goes on the top of the pile when we put it back on the, um, then picking, then we go to carding. Okay. And like I said, we're going to explain this all and then you're going to go into all your separate little areas. So it won't be as packed. Um, then we get to carding back in the day they had these carding paddles. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Walk around. Ignore the guy with the camera. He's focused on me. Right. So after it's, after it's fluffed up over there, these, um, if you're going to start processing yourself on like on your own and at home, start looking for this kind of stuff. They're not easy to find, but you know what? There's a lot of seniors that are willing to pass on the trade and want to keep it alive. Okay. And that's where I've come across a lot of my stuff. People know that I do it and they're like, Hey, like my spinning wheels, you know, like they're like, it's a decor. Now nobody's used it in like 30 years. Right. They want to see it used. So these are the old school ones. You fill it like this and you fill your car, a carding paddle. And these you'll see them up like 70 bucks, you know, find them for on Kijiji 20 bucks. That's a good price. 20 bucks. Um, then you would comb it on this one and what it's doing all this, the carding is basically combing and you're lining up all the fibers. Okay. These are very time consuming and take a long time. Um, and they're awkward little old ladies like to use them. And then what they would do is they would roll it. And then that becomes your roving that you would spin. Okay. Um, they have this machine, which is a carding machine, which is the one I liked. You can, you can try both either one. Um, this one is meant where you got all your fluff stuff. You put it on the end here and you turn, you're kind of putting a little bit of pressure here to kind of make it pull. And as the two different go, uh, nails staples cross, they're pulling the fibers and straightening them out. And then you just turn it and you go around much easier than the carding paddles in my mind. Um, now this gets pretty stiff this way. After years of using this machine this way, I kind of figured, well, now I'm pulling off of here and having to take this off of here and put it up here using all your fiber. What I've done now, instead of doing it this way, which is great, but we're time consuming. Um, there's a line through here, somewhere right there. Then you take this off and you would run this through a couple times through there. So now when I take this off, this is called the bat. I usually rip this in half and I'll feed this half through. And what it does is you're, you're, you can still see how they're not all aligned. And then I'll run it through again, holding it kind of here so that it has to pull so that it's kind of straightening it as it goes through. I find that if you don't do that, you end up with way more on here. Okay. And this, this side has actually become quite annoying to me. I'll show you the way I do it after this. This is the way the machine is meant to be used. And I find if I do it this way, usually two or three times through there. That's why I say, yeah, you'll, you'll get right in here with it. Okay. And then you run it to through until you you're happy with the consistency. Of course, if you're going for a chunky yarn, you're not too worried about it, but if you're going for a really fine and you're really good at spinning, then you'll want to do it more. So you can fill this right up, like keep going until this is solid. What I have found that I like doing better because this takes many steps this way. What I'll do is I'll stand here and I'll watch TV and I do what I call the kissing so that I'm, I'm avoiding this, right? So I'm just straightening it like this and holding it and you get the feel of what's happening and it, I find this way a lot quicker than, and then I only do this once. I don't have to run it through because I can see it. And instead of having to reset this and fix this, I can find as I'm going through like this, I can be like, okay, there's a piece of dirt, right? And this step two will also, you can see the dirt and you see the dirt all in there. This also gets more debris out. So you're not worrying about getting all the little things out here because every step you're going to get more and more out. At this point, we're just picking out the great big grass seeds or the great big sticks or the poop, right? And then the carding, that's, I love that way of doing the carding just because I find it less work. So simple kiss, right? See, I let go a chunk there, but now I can pick it up on the next round. And there we go, right? Then from carding, it goes to my daughter. I stop. So we have two different ways of spinning that we have. So the first is the spinning wheel. And then you also have the drop spindle, which I can't do the drop spindle. My mom has kind of learned with the drop spindle, but this one is kind of more so from what I know from her doing it, you're attaching it here, and then you're hooking the extra fiber onto here, and then you spin it out. And then once you have enough here, you unhook it and you wind it onto here. So normally you'd be holding it between your legs and then spinning it and going off from that. My one that I prefer is the spinning wheel. So this one is a little harder with a group, but when you guys are split up, it'll be a lot easier. So this has the two cords that are going across, and this is actually one. So this spins these two pieces at two different ways, which adds the spin over here. So this goes through two different holes to kind of get to here. Normally you'd have a leader yarn on here that's kind of fluffy, kind of more like a wool or a fibrous one that your alpaca or wool can attach to. And then you would find, so your batting that you got from there, I have all mine here. If I can get a chunk. Roving? No, roving would be prepared stuff. Mom was messing with my stuff again because there's alpaca in here. Okay, so normally the roving, which you referred to, is you'd find a piece and you would make it the size that you want. So you go along and you're just getting it the size, and then you would just spin this directly. And that would be your roving. So with starting the spinning, normally when you guys are over here and I'll start teaching you, I'll start you on that one to get your foot movement. Because it can get a little annoying because you always have to keep your foot going, and you've also got to keep your hands going. It can be a little distracting when you're doing both at the same time. So you would get used to your spinning and your foot motion. So attaching the new stuff, you would find your stuff and then you'd have this little fluffy section on the end. And you always want to have your fingers pinched so that you're not getting the twist going into here. Because then if you have a big section like this and it's attached and your spin goes behind, you can get this spinning as well. And then that's not going to go through the spinning wheel. So you're going to get stuck. So then you would take your two pieces and you'd kind of put them together and then you'd kind of stretch them out along each other. And then you would pinch. And then you would start spinning and you're just going along. And then once it's attached you would kind of give a really good spin with your one hand and then keep going. And then with the one hand you're pinching and with the other hand you're pulling along and getting the size that you want. And you can just change it however you want and it's just slowly going, slowly getting used to it. And I always say whenever you first start out, when you're just doing the foot motion, you want to find your fastest speed and your slowest speed. And I say that because when you're spinning, when you first start out it's going, you're going to want to go really slow because you have less of a distance for your wool to attach to on here. And it'll go a lot slower and if you go faster it'll steal it from your hand. And then you're find your fastest so that when you get further along you have more. So you want to go faster so it pulls it in. Now the other thing is you do also move your thread. Yes, so when I'm going along I move it along here to kind of fill it up across. And there's also if you ever lose it and it pops out here for some reason and you're like, oh I've lost it. I use, it's like a crochet needle with a little hook on the end. And so you have your two holes. So you would go through and I'd hook it on one spot and then you'd take this and you'd go through one hole and you hook it, you pull it through. And then once you're through that hole you go through another hole. And then normally when I lose it I'll actually back up a little bit and re-spin this. Because once it's come through you've kind of lost that twist that you've gotten. Once this stage is done and I have a full bobbin I'll actually put it onto here to kind of stretch it out and make it straight so that it kind of keeps that twist. And I'll be on here for a couple days and then we're still kind of trying to figure out our setting of the wool. So normally how you would set the twist is you would either steam it or give it a really hot bath so that it sets that twist and stays. Okay, so you've got your lace weight which is your tiny tiny once you're good. The longer the fibers the easier this is to do. Okay, this was a one so this would be considered a chunky yarn but it's all one ply so far. So we're working on getting dual ply which was one of the ladies that came to our class where you then go back afterwards and you spin two together. Where you could take a skinny one and a thicker one and then make it two ply. Okay, this is ready for knitting. This you can knit with but if you've got get a section that's yeah when you back spin it you see how it kind of like it unrolls nicely and it's straight. If she was to let go of that it twists. So when you do your second ply then you're going around with find the end. So this is still see how it's untwisting. So when you back twist it with the second one then it holds that twist and no no none of them have been steamed yet. Yeah that's one thing we have to find one or still kind of figuring out our full process. Yeah but this was not steamed. This is not steamed. It's the dual which is keeping it straighter right because you're actually going back and by going the other way you're twisting it in and it kind of holds straighter. We're still learning too which is why we do this class. Some people that come they're like like the one lady that came and did this wow it was like oh enlightening. She came she sat in that she was like I wanted to see any other of people's opinions. Yeah so so we also open up to anybody else that wants to come and share as well um which is how we learned right there's there's no classes it's processing for about five years yeah yeah um who is that compared to who is this because you do yeah I had to take out the alpaca before I could find my sheep in here we try to keep the uh animals separate because they have a story because we're a so when we do get this will be my first winter knitting with this stuff I'm so excited um because Marlene yeah we'll get a Marley hat because that's her favorite and it's named after Marlene which is Marley um so those so we like doing that kind of stuff and then if somebody you know online we'll sell them online if somebody wants a turbo hat because turbo's y'all cool then so a lot of our followers around the world have a favorite animal and then they'll be able to get something from that and that's how we raise money this and that for the animals so Tara everybody has gone for the day so everything's out um all drying right so it was a successful day yeah it as you can tell yeah red hands feel like a pink smurf or something now you had tried to dye before and it didn't work but it's because you have to set it yeah you have to add vinegar yeah just set it so vinegar to set it this is awfully wet so we're just um we've got these fans here that we're going to turn back on this one's actually a little loud uh the other one's not so bad that's over there and then again tomorrow yes we've then we've got a few people tomorrow yeah but it may look like a lot over here but then you look at the front door yeah there's bags over there there's these bags uh so there's quite a bit uh so that is it for this video a little different uh it is now cooler outside no snow yet um but i'm sure that's going to happen within the next couple weeks so if you liked this video um let me know if you have any questions put them down in the comment and i'm sure tara over here will answer them for you from all of us here at the ten acre woods have a wonderful week and we'll see you then bye