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Old wool

At the urging of her adults sons, a dear friend is going through boxes that haven't been opened in more than 20 years. Yesterday, we went through several boxes of crewel and/or needlepoint wool. The single ply and stranded Appleton-tye wool was in good condition. However, there were small spots of mold/mildew on many of the spools of wool (one ply, somewhere between the thickness of 3 and six strands of floss) that had been stored in plastic bags.

I am now the owner of more than half of that wool because it might be great for punch needle work. Is there a quick, painless and inexpensive way besides unwinding past the damaged area to insure that the icky stuff disappears or doesn't contaminate the whole spool?

Reply to
anne
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I would skein the wool and wash it with disinfectant.

And rinse and rinse and rinse; the cleaning agents themselves can cause trouble with the passage of time. Probably a good idea to put vinegar in the second rinse to make sure all alkalis are out.

(With a plant fiber, you'd put clear ammonia in the first rinse to make sure all the acids are out.)

Joy Beeson

Reply to
Joy Beeson

my experience in recieving such presents is ,,,, that You have to unwind EVERY Spool , and rewind it ,,,,,[or in your case maybe cut in wanted lengths] ,,,,, otherwise ,,,,,,,you might have unwanted visitors in your works .... mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

I am a great recycler , and try to save a lot of materials , but if it needs disinfectant , i would rather send it to a proffesional to be treated ,,,,, disinfectant in wools and other threads that you later work with your hands might have leftovers that might go into your body. And if it can`t be treated with something my body can tolerate ,, than Sorry into the Bin ..... my health is more important than that. mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

So many washings and rinsings is too much work for materials that I may never use.

I forgot to mention that all the wool had a musty odor but leaving it in the sun for a day seems to have gotten rid of that scent. The more I think about the possibilities of latent gook surfacing at some future time if I don't do a good sanitizing job, the more I think I should chuck everything in the trash, bag it for an upcoming rummage sale, or give it to a felter.

Reply to
anne

Musty smell doesn`t disappear in one day ,, it takes at least 2 weeks if you are lucky ,, and if the bacteria is already in ,,,, it wiil reappear at the most unwanted minutes.... mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

You were sooooooo right, Mirjam.

It's been aabout 10 days since I exposed the wool to the sun and scraped off the bad spots. The smell is gone but the spots are reappearing. Much as I hate to waste things and love free stuff, I'm going to ask the wool's original owner if she wants to package it with her other rummage sale donations or . . .

Reply to
anne

It is Experience Anne mm from years ago when we had to do with waht we had ,,, and later when people gave us stuff ,,,,, we are too poor to have things like that for free ,,, mirjam

Reply to
Mirjam Bruck-Cohen

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