Un mouton au pré

In our first week in France I took a tour around our campsite, and I bumped into these. Two discarded fleeces calling out my name. "Wash me, wash me. We are getting dirty here!"

She was a little shy without her coat, and kept hiding in to shadow - hence the bad lighting in this photo - but it was also very hot, so she must have been happy kind of naked.

Beautiful white wool that I didn't want to go to waste, so I asked the owners if they had any intention with it. They didn't. The sheerer said it's bad quality. Not fit for spinning. But what about needle felting? It's always worth giving it a try.

So I started washing wool again - on my holiday! Here I am washing by the outside shower.

It was harder to clean than I had imagined. Some parts were coated with straws. I decided to take a shortcut.

So this time I tried wet felting. But as usual that didn't go so well. The wool didn't want to felt. Look at all the holes!

So I enlisted the little ones at the campsite to help me with plucking the wool again! 

I had the pleasure to take two bags of soft white wool back to the Netherlands. I am now waiting for cool weather and early evenings to transfrom the wool into sculptures.

Raw material

This Spring I was offered some raw wool. Friends of ours have some land in North Holland with sheep they were planning to sheer. They know I am working with wool so they thought of me this time as they are not using the fleeces themselves.

I usually buy my materials here, but there is something earthy about the idea to make something from absolute scratch. No clue how to wash the wool and get it to needlefelting quality, but I thought I'd give it a try. Thank you internet with all your information!

And thank you Patrick for doing the sheering!

Luckily I have a garden, and the weather was cooperative.

I used many buckets and lots of water.

The first rinse was extremely dirty.

I had to be very careful with the temperature of the water. It's the difference in temperature that starts felting the wool.

Soap is also tricky. You need it to clean the wool, but it also adds the process of felting.

Then I had to dry it, which went fairly quickly due to the lovely weather we had in June.

And last but not least, I had to pull it all apart again as it did lump together. 

Next I'll have to look into how to get it ready for needle felting. But that is another story...