Raw wool knotted and clumped. Am I able to fix it?

#1

I’m completely new to the world of wool and have no idea where I went wrong.

My daughter and I found some raw wool and decided to do a mini craft project.

We washed the wool twice. It seemed pretty clean and soft. Then before trying any hand spinning we tried to brush the fibres in to the same direction.
We didn’t have the special combs for carding so tried using a soft boar’s hair brush and a comb.

The wool seems to have become clumpy and knotted though! Is there anyway to fix this?? It also seems much smaller in quantity than before.

Picture attached.

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#2

Welcome to the forum!
Perhaps @mullerslanefarm, @FluffyYarn or @Shintoga can help with this.

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#3

Welcome @Helenalisa. The wool definitely looks clean. Would you describe how you washed it?

It appears the fiber locks were agitated and felted. See those ‘scales’ in the picture? They open up when in hot water. If there is agitation, the scales interlock with each other. We call that felting.

Will you be able to spin with this? Probably not. You could try to steam the pieces to open the scales but I fear you will have limited luck.

image

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#4

I’m not an expert in spinning, and my answer is going to be more for future reference since the answer of whether you can fix this has been answered.
If you want to try again and proper wool carders aren’t in the budget, or you don’t want to spend out on something you’re not sure you’ll get long term use out of, those square metal dog brushes with handles are relatively cheap and work in a similar way to traditional wool carders; you’ll only get a comparatively small amount of carded wool from them at a time, though, and some degree of material loss is normal.

You might be able to find some videos on YouTube specifically showing how to use dog brushes to prepare your fibre for spinning. It will be a similar technique to using the traditional carders, though.
Once the fibres are ready, you can remove them by hand by gently pulling them off the comb.

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#5

It does appear to be felted. If it were me, Id try to pull it apart into small pieces & use them as slubs. The sad thing is it isnt really badly felted. But it is enough that I dont think you’ll be able to get smooth yarn out of it. But slubbed yarn is very popular. It sells better than smooth yarn for me. Especially in small amounts - like enough for a hat etc. I use waste angora and deliberately spin bumpy yarn for hats. They sell very well & I use fiber that would otherwise be waste.

I feel your pain. I once had a lamb fleece - so soft. I washed it in a big tub. But I tried to spin the excess water out in the washing machine. But I somehow set it on the spin cycle with another rinse. It agitated. It completely felted the whole fleece. Worse than yours. It could not be saved.

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#7

Thank you all for your advice.
I hand washed the wool with just warm water and soap however I have a gut feeling I was too rough when attempting to comb the wool…or perhaps didn’t adhere to some rules (of which I’m unaware) of keeping the fibres in the same/right direction.
As we only had a small amount, we were planning to try to make a bracelet for my daughter. So wouldn’t need much.
I shall try the steaming as a last resort but I fear I may just need to go hunting for more.
Thanks for taking the time to advise and help, much appreciated.

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