Kid angora goats are absolutely adorable as well.
At Rhinebeck, they have a separate sale for mohair and alpaca fleeces. I got there kind of late since I was petting the Leicester Longwool sheep and watching the nice people from Colonial Williamsburg do a combing demo. They still had lots fleeces left at noon, but it seemed like the really primo ones were gone already. Nothing was striking me until I saw this:
That's my golden fleece right there. It is the first shearing of a six month old angora goat. It had long, silky ringlets of the most gorgeous golden brown color. 6-7 inch staple length throughout, clean as can be. Did I mention how soft and silky it was? Anyway, I was in love.
I took it to the checkout table and the refreshingly honest gentleman there gave me a warning: this fleece had already been returned once because it smelled of mothballs. MOTHBALLS! I shrank back in horror. Slowly, I crept back to the trash bag of fleece and with shaky hands, opened it back up. I inched closer and let my nose hover a couple feet above and took a whiff.
Yup.
There's no mistaking it.
Mothballs.
I whipped out my phone and started calling fleeceophiles and goat breeders I knew. Has anyone ever dealt with a fleece stored in mothballs? I was assured by one goat breeder that the smell would wash out with a little ammonia added to the bath. Other people said that there was no way it would wash out. Finally, we had a very nice goat shepherd stop by, kvetch about how terrible it was for someone to store their fleece in mothballs, but assured me that it would wash out.
A ten dollar discount made me feel better about the situation in general. Baby mohair isn't exactly cheap.
Once home, I set about to washing this right away. The smell was strong- what I didn't originally pick up on right away at the fairgrounds was now filling my apartment with that awful chemical smell. I think the reason why I failed to originally detect the smell when I chose the fleece was a combination of all the sheepy and goaty smells that might have overpowered it, and the fact that it was cold enough out to make my nose run a bit making anything but the most odoriferous smells hard to detect. Once it was home, it was definitely the only thing I could smell.
I did my standard fleece-washing treatment- hot water and a whole lot of Dawn.
Mohair has a wee bit of lanolin in it. No where near as much as a sheep, but enough to leech a little brown into the bathwater. I would usually only give it one wash, and then a rinse or two.
After the third wash (with lots of soap) I finally felt as though maybe the smell was dissipating. I did two rinses with a whole lot of vinegar. Most of a bottle, and a little bit more for good luck.
I then dried the fleece on a window screen with about a dozen of cedar blocks tossed in and a fan in front of it. Once or twice a day, I would come by and give the whole think a flip.
That's my fleece drying condo, built right next to my alcoholic beverage condo.
I'm happy to report that the mothball smell is completely gone. I bagged some of the fresh clean fleece up and passed it around to some knitters and spinners at my local meetup, and it passed the test. Not a hint of mothball remains.
On a side note- I found out it was Steph from Loop who originally bought the fleece and then returned it. Thanks, Steph.
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