They Say Confession is Good for the Soul...

All right, I've been holding onto a sin of omission. Perhaps you can help me out before I have to give up and confess everything to my husband. You see, a few weeks ago, I decided to clean up a whole boatload of alpaca fiber. So I filled the washing machine with hot water, added some soap, stuffed the fiber in, let it soak, and then spun it out on the gentlest setting the washer could do. The result was half a washing machine of clean fiber, the other half a big lump of felt. Sigh. And, well, after that, the washing machine refused ever again to spin.

Now, if you ask me, a washing machine ought to be able to handle a little abuse. But then, I've said the same thing about my dishwasher (I thought I'd clean out my flower pots by putting them in... apparently there is such a thing as "too much dirt"), assorted blenders (I have one on my countertop that smokes when you try to use it, and another one that seems capable of mushing up ice cream, maybe, but definitely not ice cubes), and vacuum cleaners (I suspect I'm on the Abusive Vacuum Cleaner Owner hotlist. Why shouldn't a vacuum cleaner be able to suck up drywall compound or large quantities of baking soda?). I come by my appliance-abusive nature naturally - one of our first purchases for our house was a new microwave oven, purchased after my Dad tried to use the microwave as a timer, without putting anything into it to cook.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure my husband loves me beyond all idea, but for some reason, I just don't want to tell him about the washer. So for the last few weeks, every time something needs to be washed, BAM!, I'm on it. I put stuff in, it shakes things around for a while, and then lets the water out. And then I run it again, figuring that's the equivalent to having a rinse cycle. So far, nobody's complaining, so I figure I've got everyone fooled.

This ought to work for a while, at least until the day when my husband beats me to the washer. And I wonder, sometimes, if he's noticed how enthusiastic I am about washing just now. My big plan is to wait another month or so and then, one day, leave the laundry to build up until he can't live without something. Then he'll do the wash, notice that the washer doesn't spin, and conclude that HE broke it.

Sounds like a plan, don't you think? But he's going to a wedding this weekend, and I'm staying behind, so I thought maybe, just maybe, I could find someone who can tell me how to oh-so-gently take apart a washing machine. It's just that middle thing - the tower - I theorize, that needs to come out. I mean really, how complicated can a washing machine be? So if anyone knows how to pull the tower out so I can look underneath to see if there's a big blob of alpaca fiber sticking to its innerds, please drop me a line.

Now, of course, you have to wonder what I'm going to do with that big felted mess. I have to admit, this too has happened before. I read up on the internet that you could wash your fiber in the washing machine, and so far, I've become quite the felter. The first time I did this (oh yes, I'm one of those sad people who actually believes that if you do something enough times, sooner or later it will work the way it says it should on the internet), I ended up with a big blob of white alpaca. It sat in my family room for a month while I contemplated it. I couldn't waste it by throwing it away. Surely there had to be a solution?

So then I got to thinking, "I do have my trusty picker, maybe that could unfelt it." So I pulled apart the fiber as best I could and put it through the picker. Now, you've figured out by now that I have an abusive streak when it comes to appliances, so you might have some doubts as to just what state the picker might be in after I finished with it. The good news is, a picker is a pretty simple device. You can clog it up, but you only do that once before you realize that there are better ways to go through life than having to battle with a picker.

Here's a couple of pictures of my picker. You can see, it's a medieval torture device with tons of big long nails on it. You toss the offending fiber in, and it pulls it apart. So I was able to resuscitate my first batch of felted alpaca. The result isn't as wonderfully soft as alpaca usually is, but it was usable, so I put it through my electric drum carder, and ended up with reasonable batts of fiber. I'll do the same with my washing machine-eaten felt from last month.



Now, with all that said, I finally drew the line on losing so much fiber to felting. So I pondered it for a while and then decided to try an idea that my friend Val suggested. See what you think: First, I fill up the washing machine with hot water and some synthropol ("Oh NO!", the washer screams, "Please don't do this to me again!") Then I stuff my fiber in and let it set for a while. And then I get out my trusty $3 Walmart salad spinner and a bucket. I fill the bucket with hot water, put on my rubber gloves, and pull fiber out of the washing machine and rinse it out in the bucket of hot water, and then put it in the salad spinner and spin it out, and then set it out to dry. And lo, finally, I have clean fiber that hasn't felted. Once the fiber is all pulled out of the washing machine, I finish the cycle (well, it swishes around for a while and then lets out the water... I'm still waiting for you to tell me how to fix my washing machine so it will spin again), and then I put the fiber on drying racks in the garage. Perfect.