The dreaded "C" word, and Lambchop

For some reason I was under such stress during finals that I couldn't even *gasp* knit. Seriously there was some form of mental block that disallowed me from even remotely knitting. So I started a crochet afghan out of scraps from the baby log cabin blanket. This will make me happy when it's done because I will have learned a new skill and used up a bunch of superfluous acrylic.

In the mail on the day of my last hand in final a lovely man with a box appeared. In it was this:

This gorgous fleece came from AuntieAnnies from a lovely sheepy named Lambchop. Now I have to say I have never processed a fleece before, a chunck I got at Agribition for free but really when it came to doing the whole partial fleece thing I was perplexed.
I have been reading SockPr0n for a while now, and have watched several fleeces transformed in her blog so I researched and backread her blog (which was really thee best informative source without a book that I found). I started by diving in. I wanted to know the fleece, I wanted to see what it had to offer. So did bebop. He's very much a fan of sheep.

So I decided to be nitpicky and I got some laundry bags so I could keep the lock formation. I contemplated the Yarn Harlot method, but as my kitchen heats up like crazy when the stoves on and I am one to walk away unsuspectingly I opted for the sink. I layered the locks in the bag after fluffing them out a bit and picking any VM out.
It should be said that this fleece is well skirted and was jacketed so really there isn't a lot to be picked but I find that if i pre-fluff the fleece before washing then I get more dirt out with less washing. And I am super paranoid about agitation so clearly I wanted to do everything possible to minimize that.

The lanolin just came off, seriously, this was the first wash, Look how yellowish that water is. I really should have uploaded a picture of the finished product but as I feel it's ongoing I haven't. Because of space constraints etc I can only really process a little at a time without compromizing quality. So as I truck along slowly I have a pile of fleece that is clean and joyous.

Now the only thing will be if I want to dye it, spin then dye it, leave it plain (this probably won't happen as me and white are mortal enemies). But I'll figure that all out when I have this whole thing processed.