(C) Olwen White Hi all Last year I had a go at processing raw sheep fleece. By that I mean, unwashed fleece straight off the sheep’s back. Still pretty much intact, complete with bits of straw, grass, bramble, and other debris that sheep tend to roll in. So my first job was to pick out as much of that jumble of vegetation and manure as I could. By hand… and yes, it was as icky as it sounds! Step 1 - Washing and Drying the Fleece For my first fleece, I used warm water and some Woolite . You can use a special scouring soap like Unicorn Power Scour , but I didn’t have any. I would have used hot water, but as I was processing the fleece outside, I couldn’t get it any hotter than warm. The camping stove I was using couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of water needed to wash a fleece. Besides, if the water is too hot you can felt the fleece rather than clean it, so I figured warm would be safer. I mean wool is usually washed in cold water, right? So warm should be fine… ...