Lately, my Fridays have been spent in a scramble of errands, food prep, and driving the kiddos around but today, I actually have a free day! So …. I’m spending my time prepping some really beautiful wool for spinning.
For a bit of background, I had the pleasure of helping out at Fleece and Harmony on shearing day. The major perk of working at the skirting table means you get to preview ALL the lovely fleece 😆 and I fell in love with some of the silvery grey that passed along the table. Kim and Ken sent a big bag full of this precious wool home with me and I promptly washed and dried it for later processing.
Having previously been a hand carder here at home and stepping up to a drum carder, there is a bit of a learning curve to creating lovely and smooth spinning batts but I have to say, I feel I’m getting the knack of it!
I started out by flicking the tips open and moved on to picking. Each generous handful of wool went through the box picker twice. After picking, I put the wool through the drum carder twice as well. I made sure to add the wool slowly and to spread it out. The resulting batt is EXACTLY what I was going for …. Smooth, airy, light, and soft. I can’t wait to spin it!
What kind of fun crafty things are you working on? Are you working on expanding any of your skill sets? I’d love to hear!
Sand And Sky Creations 
Hi Simone, I was lucky to get a used drum carder but found it didn’t pull in the wool. I bought a new rubber belt for it and I’ll try again. It’s SO much fun to create batts!
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How lovely and what gorgeous fiber. I’m learning to hand card Icelandic wool right now. It’s a slow process but I’m enjoying it.
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