Professional Wool Washing Service with Unicorn Scour

At Driftless Woolen Mill, we ensure your raw wool is meticulously and gently washed using Unicorn Scour washing detergent. Here’s our careful process:

Initial Inspection: We carefully sort through your raw wool to remove debris, preparing it for washing.

Preparation: We use warm water at a consistent temperature to soak the wool, preventing fiber shock and felting.

Washing Process:

First Soak: Your wool is gently submerged in warm water to loosen dirt and lanolin.

Detergent Soak: We add Unicorn Scour detergent to a fresh tub of warm water and soak the wool, ensuring a thorough clean.

Rinsing: The wool is rinsed multiple times in clean, warm water until all detergent is removed.

Drying:

Excess water is gently removed, and the wool is air-dried on racks in a well-ventilated area, away from direct sunlight.

Transforming Clean Wool into a Cloud

Once your wool is washed and dried, we begin the process of transforming it into a soft, fluffy cloud:

Conditioning: We apply a gentle conditioner to your wool to ensure the fibers remain intact and in the best shape possible.

Opening and Picking:

Fiber Opening: The conditioned wool is passed through a picker one or two times. This step opens up the fibers, separating and fluffing them for further processing.

Turning your wool into batts is an essential step in aligning the fibers, creating a versatile sheet of wool perfect for various crafts. Here’s what you can expect:

Fiber Alignment: We align the fibers in your wool to form uniform sheets, known as batts.

Versatile Use: These wool batts are ideal for felting, hand spinning, or any other wool craft your heart desires.

After creating wool batts, we take the next steps to transform your wool into roving and then into convenient bumps. Here’s how we do it:

Carding:

Carding the Wool: The wool batts are fed through a carding machine, which further aligns the fibers into a smooth, continuous strand known as roving.

Creating Roving:

Forming Roving: The carding machine carefully draws the wool into long, even strands. This process ensures that the fibers are aligned and ready for spinning or other crafts.

Forming a Bump:

Winding into a Bump: The roving is then wound into a large, compact coil called a bump. This makes the roving easy to handle, store, and use.

Washing 5.00 per incoming weight. Wool must arrive skirted and picked. If it is determined it needs to be completed we will charge 25.00 per hour for this work

Cloud 10.00 per pound clean weight

Batt 14.00 per pound clean weight

Roving 14.00 per pound clean weight