Just how big is a fleece?

alternatively, I could have called this post, "things I have learned the hard way about washing fleece".

I'm a sucker for a freebie, I really am and who in their right mind these days says no to the offer of a free fleece or two? I'd asked my friend's father in law if he'd consider selling me one of his fleeces some while back. The answer was "no I can't but I'll give you one. What sort of fleece do you want? Why don't you come over and take a look for yourself...." Some weeks went by and I completely forgot about it until my friend's hubby said one morning at school "I've got a fleece in the car for you". Magic I thought and toddled along to collect it. "Do you want a coloured fleece? Dad can't sell them, they're piling up" More free fleece? Hell yes!

Now I've not been spinning all that long in the scheme of things and while I have spun unprepared fleece before, it's always been washed and prepped already. I'd not really considered the logistics of the whole business, or actually, how big a fleece is minus it's sheep. Bigger than I realised is the answer. It arrived all condensed nicely into the box behind but for some reason, it doesn't want to fit back in. It'd been skirted pretty well already so I decided to jump straight in and "have a go" and separated a chunk of it to wash. About a quarter of it in fact. It filled my whole bath. In hindsight, I'd have washed quite a lot less in one go. I also wouldn't leave it out to dry under a tree again. My learning curve has definately been a steep one but for a first attempt, it didn't actually trun out too badly. I didn't felt it and now have some nice soft coloured fleece to ready play with. I still have to pick out all additional vm kindly provided by my laburnum tree but we'll just gloss over that one for now. Onwards and upwards as they say. Roll on the next sunny day.