See the Fleece!

Here you go with some images at last. First, the fleece in its delivery box, bagged, with all the extra air squeezed out:



When I opened the bag, the fleece puffed up to about twice this size. Then I unbagged and unrolled it:



Here's a closeup of the great crimp:



And here's me and one of my cats with the fleece, for scale:



In the background you can see some of the furniture I had to move aside to be able to roll this monster out. It definitely smelled like ram, or so I'm guessing. I chose the portion in the foreground of the last photo, which I'm guessing is from the hind section of the ram, to wash this afternoon, to put my scouring to the acid test for eliminating odor. (Just to be clear: I'm not seeing dung tags -- the fleece is well-skirted. But that section definitely shows more dirt than the others.) The fleece came out smelling much better. It's drying now.

If you've ever scoured a fleece, maybe you can identify with this: I can't not fiddle with a fleece while it's soaking in the HOT soapy water (perhaps my faith in chemistry falls short, but I just want the whole thing to be underwater, darn it, and fleece likes to float!). And as you may know, heat plus soap plus agitation gives you felting -- not so desirable in fiber you plan to comb or card and then spin! I restrained myself as much as I could. When the fleece is dry and I try carding it with my new, fine hand cards (thank you, DH!), we'll see whether my restraint was sufficient. I may try rewashing part of it: I think I put too much fleece in my mesh bags, and so my washing didn't make much of a dent in the dark tips. Worst case, if I trim them, it's less than a quarter inch of staple lost, so I'd still have at least 4 inches over most of the fleece. Suggestions welcome!