Scouring lessons

A couple of weeks ago I mail-ordered a small bottle of Power Scour. It is a detergent that’s especially good at removing grease and lanolin from fleece. I washed a batch of that fleece that we have kicking around and learned a couple of small lessons, so today I dug out my equipment again and gave it a second go.

My equipment includes a well-used old enamel canner, the Power Scour, a TBS measuring spoon, a 1-litre measuring cup, and an old bath towel. When I made my first attempt, I put about 2 gallons of hot tap water into the canner and stirred in a tablespoon of detergent. Then I gently laid about three good layers of fleece into the water and submerged the layers by pressing them gently down into the “bath” and let that all soak for about half an hour. The trouble I encountered was that the water needed to be drained so I could use the same canner for my rinses. I found the soaked fleece was impossible to lift out in a single try with just my hands because it was heavy and “drapey” and lacked enough structure to come out as one lump. I thought of squeezing it together with my hands so that it would be more compact and “grabable”, but that seemed like a quick way to turn it into a felted mess. So I put the lid on the canner and carefully tipped it on its side and let the (filthy) water run out into the snow off the edge of our deck. It worked reasonably well.

I did not want to pour water directly onto the fleece (also because I was scared of felting), so I dumped the batch onto my towel and then refilled the canner with 2 more gallons of hot tap water, adding my fleece in the same way I did the first time. I went through that process twice, and then I was satisfied with the much lighter colour of the water that ran out when I drained it into the snow. After the rinses were done, I spread the wet locks out on my towel in the garage and left them there for 4 days. The temperature in there is about 14 degrees Celsius, and the humidity was high, so the drying took about that long.

Today I tried again. Only this time I put the canning rack into the canner first so that I would have a way to lift out my wet fleece when discarding the dirty water. I also put only one layer of fleece in the canner. These changes made the whole process easier, but I would say that I could maybe put a bit more fleece in next time without any problems and the wire rack needs a bit more of a floor in it to keep the fleece from drooping out when I lift it out of the water.

Overall, I am feeling pretty confident that I can get this whole fleece washed using this method.

Dirty water dripping from basket of washed fleece into snow bank