# Just purchased raw longwool Lincoln fleece



## misslilo86 (Jan 18, 2015)

This gorgeous fleece has such beautiful locks with beautiful crimp on it (staple length 7 inches), my question is this:

This is my first time handling longwool fleece ( I have prepared alpaca and tunis wool only), the lanolin on the lincoln is pretty normal. but should I wash the whole fleece together (after skirting of course) or should I separate the locks before washing the wool and then wash the locks separately? 

Or can I just wash the whole thing together and separate the locks after?

Thank you!!!!


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## Rosepath (Feb 18, 2011)

You could do either method of washing, it depends on what you want to do with the fleece. If flick-carding the longwool fibers, probably separating locks and washing first is good, but if you're carding all of it into rolags to spin, wash the whole thing.
If it's a pretty big fleece, you could separate it into sections. There are some good sites and charts online which will tell you more than you probably want to know about wool http://www.sheep101.info/201/woolmarketing.html. But in short, there are areas that are finer and others coarser, even in Lincoln - shoulder and neck, back: a bit finer; wool from along the back legs, kempy and coarse. You can separate by feel if you want to spin different kinds of yarn out of the same fleece.


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## misslilo86 (Jan 18, 2015)

Thank you thank you THANK YOU!


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## DragonFlyFarm (Oct 12, 2012)

Misslilo your fleece sounds wonderful! I like to separate locks and wash in lingerie bags -- usually about 1/2 pound per bag. Are you going to comb the locks? Pictures would be nice  Have fun with your fleece!


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## misslilo86 (Jan 18, 2015)

So after 6 hours of lightly skirting and separating the locks, I finally put it to wash... IT'S SO FLUFFY!!! I'm giddy as can be 

Before and after (reversed)


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

How did your lovely crimped fleece turn out and what did you make? Inquiring minds just have to know!


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