Wensleydale Wool Locks

From grim to glam in 9 steps.DA903436-35F4-402E-AAB9-BE741A48EC03I love me a Longwool lock, just recently I’ve been experimenting with combing and rewashing them to get a more neat and clean end product.

I’m sure this is nothing new but this was a revelation to me when I realised how easily the locks would refind their natural curl once wet again.

I also love how this method really does get rid of all the dirt, funny stuff and even near enough all the vm you can find in a raw fleece and takes out all the knots and nepps. It’s a time consuming process and definitely not necessary with those fleeces you can get with beautiful premium glossy long locks that need nothing more than a gentle wash.

Here’s how I went from dirty fleece to lovely luscious locks 🙂

  1. Wash- This fleece started out pretty greasy (it was from an older ewe), in previous washes some of the lanolin had crystallised and resettled on the fleece so I knew I needed to wash in really hot water with washing up liquid and a short soak (so the water didn’t cool)
  2. Rinse- rinsed in hot water until water was clear
  3. Dye- I separated the fleece into 4 dye baths and dyed with acid dyes at very low concentration to achieve pastel colours
  4. Rinse again- not too much as I knew I would be washing again later…
  5. Dry- I have a collection of vintage cotton tea towels I use to lay the fleece on near a radiator, would love to ‘sun dry’ but sun is a rare commodity in the north of England!
  6. Separate- once dyed I separated the locks, pulling from the tips, my thrifty nature means I mustn’t waste anything so any ‘dodgy’ locks were put on the wool combs and combed out to be spun or added to batts
  7. Card and bunch- gathering the locks in bunches of 5 or 6 I lined them all up, then gripped them in one hand and holding a small carder in the other pulled the tips through the teeth a few times, opening up the locks and creating a scary frizzy mess. I then turned the locks around and repeated with the cut ends. Keeping everything aligned I used tiny hair elastics to the these mini bunches together
  8. Wash and condition- here’s where the magic happened, I filled a sink with warm water and individually shampooed, conditioned and rinsed each bunch, carefully scrunching at the end (like you would do with curly hair) then after removing the elastics laid out to dry
  9. Relax and Admire!