Cleaning the Wool-Another Part of the Weaving Process

The class gathered to clean wool that was donated by a local farmer during one of our class sessions. Both parents and students shared in the task and although it was a little messy, the wool was cleaned. The wool will be carded and spun into yarn.

Some class participants have made enormous progress. One person, Sheila Lopez-Aguirre completed her first rug! This is a special present for her daughter. Congratulations Sheila!



The donation to the Weaving Class posed an interesting problem since we didn't have cleaning facilities to work with at the Phoenix Indian Center and you know Dine people always learn to improvise. We decided to take our wool to the alley and started the cleaning process.



We set up buckets/containers and got to work. This is elbow grease at work, all of the class members took a turn at cleaning the wool.



The weaving process is a generational one and we wanted the little ones to take a part. They thought it was messy at first but they got right in there and helped out. They ended up having some fun.



Next, the wool was laid out to start drying out. We had a challenge since we didn't really have a designated area to do this. The class made it work.



The wool is all laid out and ready to dry in the sun. It was an interesting and everyone had a good time helping out.