I am NOT cut out for cleaning fleece. It is official. I received my gargantuan 5 lbs of unprocessed alpaca fleece in the mail today and I don't know what I've gotten myself into. The Ebay description of the item says it is "as clean as is normal for unprocessed fiber" but what they really meant was "You are buying the filthiest, smelliest fiber on earth and your whole house will smell like wet dog when you open the box and also, isn't it funny that we had the nerve to call this fiber 'misty white' when it's gray."
The first blob is currently soaking in my kitchen sink. We'll see whether I can bring myself to make it all the way through the cleaning process or if I decide to write this off as a $40 lesson learned. Or maybe give it free to the first taker who offers to pay for shipping. Ok, ok, let's not get carried away. I'm REALLY going to try to finish this batch, even if I never do it again. Man, I had NO IDEA how good I had it with my nice, neat, processed roving.
EDIT: Oh my god I just checked on it and the water was BLACK. I couldn't see my own hand in the 3" deep water when I pulled the stopper out. I'll never make it!! On the bright side, maybe that means my fiber is white after all once the filth comes out of it. Oh, and it would actually be a $61 lesson learned if I scrapped the whole thing because I forgot about the $20 shipping charge it cost me to get the stupid stuff here from Canada.