SC - fleece cleaning

[Stefan li Rous]

My appologies for not quoting the message, but I accidentally erased the
digest. :-( Someone was asking about whether in period they washed the
fleece before spinnning it to remove the lanolin. I remember some discussions
on why they would not want to do this. For instance, leaving the lanolin
in will make a much more water-resistant piece of clothing.

I suspect that even in one region you might find both being done, depending
upon the type and use for the cloth the thread was intended for.

I don't think I've got any dcoumentable info on when or where this was
done or not. I'd love to see more such info. The files in the Florilegium
that might be of use in this search are:
In the CLOTHING section:
raingear-msg      (49K)  7/22/98    Period raingear. waterproofing cloth.

In the TEXTILE ARTS section:
spinning-msg      (52K)  6/23/00    Spinning wheels, spindles. techniques.
wool-clean-msg    (23K)  6/16/95    Cleaning wool before spinning.
  (This last is mostly on using modern methods such as washing machines to
clean fleeces. But I thought some on this list, particularly those new to
spinning, might find some of the ideas and comments useful.)
- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****