Our Hero, Pretzel

This morning we took Molly for a spa day at the the local kennel. (Really, it's just a bath and a haircut but we want Molly to feel like it's special.) The owner, Connie, told me the sweetest story. She has two cats who have been boarding since June. Yesterday morning when she arrived at the kennel to start work, she noticed blood all over the cage where the cats were and her first thought was that they'd been fighting. Immediately, she removed one of the cats and it was then that she realized the one remaining was in the process of giving birth. Off to the side, there was something small and dark, a kitten that appeared to be stillborn. Connie took the kitten and proceeded to massage it with a towel. Occasionally, it would gasp and try to breathe, but she could feel that its body was cool. In desperation, she held the little bundle out to her dog, Pretzel, who sniffed and then, started to lick it. After a few seconds, the kitten let out a healthy cry. Connie put him back at the mother's side and he started to nurse with the other three kittens. Pretzel, a pit bull with an enormous heart had saved the day!

Further Adventures

Last night, I read a post on Ravelry from someone who has bought at least one yucky fleece before. She said that she soaks everything overnight in cold water and after one trip through a hot detergent bath and a couple of rinses, the fleece is transformed. I tried it and, sure enough, in the morning, the water in the bucket was brown and murky. After 20 minutes in the hot soapy water, there was hardly any mud at all!

I was regretting this project, thinking that I should perhaps put the whole mess in the trash, but now I have hope that I can salvage it.

UPDATE: I'm on the road! I'm spinning Mercy's fleece into bulky yarn and it's really quite nice. Here's a photo of my yarn and another showing the start of my cardigan. I'm using a Drops pattern, #109-3, which is a hoodie with Celtic ropes up the front and on the back.

Adventures in Fleece

Yesterday I received the fleece I bought last weekend off Ebay. I've really been looking forward to it, even dreaming about it, but now, having opened the box, I'm not sure why. The auction description said that the sheep, who's name is Mercy (as in, have mercy on me!) was supposed to have been coated (the sheep wear covers to protect the fleece) but I'm thinking that this guy only wore his coat on Sundays. I'm new to this fleece business but there just seems to be an awful lot of muck and other dark matter on the wool. The picture on the auction site didn't look anything like this mess--wonder why.

The top photo shows what came in the mail. Actually, the picture doesn't look that bad--it looks like something a Klingon would eat for dinner--but the reality was really very disgusting. If I didn't know that there was creamy white and silvery grey wool in there, dying to be cleaned, I'd have chucked the whole thing into the garbage.

My spinning teacher had discussed "scouring" or cleaning raw wool and I've gone online to get some more pointers. I got my lingerie bag and filled it 2/3 full with some of the best locks; the really grungy stuff went into the compost heap. I filled a drywall bucket with hot, hot water and some dish detergent and placed the bag in the bucket. Most of the directions caution strongly against touching the wet wool in any way, since Abrasion + Hot Water + Soap = Felting so I resisted the temptation to mess with it. I soaked the first bag for 30 minutes and then plunked into two hot vinegar baths to rinse. When I blotted it with a towel, there was still a fair amount of mud in the tips of the locks, so now I'm doing two 20 minute washes.

Let's see: each bag of fleece is about 3/4 of a pound and the process takes a minimum of 55 minutes to get the fleece to the drying stage. Something tells me that nine pounds of sheep fleece is going to take a little more time to wash than I thought!

The second photo is a batch of wool, drying on the porch. Every dark area is muddy crap.