Carding an Art Batt

Freshly carded art batt, looking very much like a cocoon!

Sometimes crafting is like "shaving yaks."  In order to do one thing, you need infrastructure to support it, which means you have to get other things ready before you can "do the thing."

Before I can spin an art batt, I have to have an art batt to start with.  Fortunately, I was able to order a few online to get me started.  So I can study how it comes out, the structure, the color and texture mixes, what fibers and in what proportion ...  Then comes collecting and gathering your fibers.

I ordered a couple finished art batts from Wild Thyme.

I ordered the ingredients from Big Sky Fiber Arts.  They send a bag of mixed fibers in different color ways.  I ordered purples and greens.

This is how they looked released and unwrapped from the bag.  It still needed to be carded together.    Really a nice combination!    Ah-- but how to do that without blending all the fibers into mud?

 One of the videos I watched recommends layering your chosen fibers into a sandwich, that you can then feed into your carding machine. 

Here's the first batt.

You can see this one rolled up into a rolag at the top of this post.  

Here's the second one.  This one is a little more blended -- like a landscape.

I kept trying to feed in the fiber that was sticking to the intake roller, and things got progressively more mixed.  I am looking forward to spinning these batts!

For my own reference, I am also adding some of the videos I watched to learn this technique:



Fortunately, there are some great how-to videos out there on YouTube.  I found this one by Ashley Martineau where she uses a sandwich technique that seemed to get good results.



Here's another one where she uses a "painterly technique" where she bypasses the intake roll, and just "paints" the fibers on the top roll.




Here's one from Blue Mountain Hand Crafts.  I am intrigued by the "fiber salad" she starts with and the beautiful batt that results!

Here's a tutorial from Staunch Fibers:
How to Give Forgotten Fibers a Bat-tacular Makeover.