Friday, February 04, 2011

Scurf attack

Some of you may not be interested in this detail about about fleece but I find it fascinating. What exactly is Scurf? Basically it's animal dandruff. Tiny little flakes mixed in with the fiber. It's a skin condition of the animal, little bits of dead skin. Exactly the same as if we shaved human hair with a slight condition of dandruff.

I bought a pound of this magnificent Mohair soft and wonderful to the touch but when I started to spin it I noticed these tiny little dandruff looking bits. Coincidentally I had just taken a class last weekend at a "Fiber Frolic" I attended and they talked about scurf. Prior to this I had never heard of it or knew such a condition existed. Little did I know that a few days later I would be confronted with Mohair with scurf!

I have eMailed lots of people that I thought could advise me because I really did not want to hear that I should send this pound of wonderful mohair back to where it came from. I like it, I already have some projects in mind for it and so I have a dilemma.

No I don't think Head and Shoulders would help. I did think of it though. The lucky part is that the color is almost the same as the flakes and I can flick, pick or kick them out. But do I want to add this extra work? Dilemma.

See the bag of fleece that is 8 oz, I have 16 oz that's a lot of dandruff. But at least it's not black. I placed a pencil in the picture to give perspective of the size of the little flakes. I'll let you know how it goes.





- Posted by Ana Petrova

4 comments:

Bishop Stone said...

luckily I have not come across this problem. I am interested to hear what you have decided to do.

Marla said...

Ewwwwwwww ask for a shampooed fleece next time.

Beulhamae said...

I have never heard of it, but now I will pay attention when I look at fleece. Keep us posted how you sort this one out.

Beulhamae said...

I have never heard of that, keep us posted on what you do? Flicking them out seems a bit tedious, but if you love the fleece go for it.