Washing Angora Yarn

A loosely twisted skein of tort yarn, just spun but not yet washed.

Dawn is very good for washing Angora items; any other gentle dishwashing liquid also works.

Pour a little Dawn into the warm water and stir.

Soak the skein of Angora yarn for a few hours, push it a little then change water and rinse until the soap residues are all gone.

Put the wet yarn on a big bath towel and let the towel soak up the moisture.

When the bath towel is saturated with water, take another dry towel and put the Angora skein on it to take out more moisture.

If it's a nice sunny day, hang the skein to dry.

If it's not a dry day and if you have force air heating, put a shelf on top of the vent and spread the skein. The key is to dry thoroughly and quickly without agitating the yarn. If the yarn is not dried thoroughly and quickly, it may smell like a wet dog. If you tumble the yarn in the dryer, it may felt the yarn.

Now the yarn is thoroughly dried, it's twisted into a skein. The washed skein usually does not look as fluffy as the unwashed skein. However, knitting will provide enough handling to fluff up the yarn and wearing the finish hat or scarf will provide further handling to make the finished item way fluffier than the washed yarn.