Carding Wool for the Season

Finally a nice, not-too-hot or humid or rainy day where I can be outside for carding fiber.  It's definitely a task for spring and fall.

Last week, I used my new wool picker (Still need to work up that post) to open the fibers on a really nice wool and silk mix.  The bottom of the bag had gotten mashed, and that layer was getting difficult to spin, even after dizzing it.  So today I did the next step in preparing the fiber for spinning: Carding it on my Patrick Green carding machine.

Here is the carder (on Gramma Pickles' little card table!), loaded up with fiber to be carded and combed in preparation for spinning.  2 or 3 loads like this was enough to make a good-sized batt. 

Carding can be hard work, so I don't always look forward to it.  But low-and-behold, having done the previous step of picking the fiber and opening it beforehand, things went a lot smoother this afternoon.

I carded that whole bag of wool and silk "cloud" into about a dozen batts.

I was sitting next to a giant stand of purple asters which are in full bloom.  At any given moment, there were a dozen butterflies on it, and countless bees diligently doing their work gathering nectar and pollen.  They didn't seem at all disturbed by the carding process.

They look a little funny because I've started rolling them into rolags, straight off the drum carder.  I can't remember where I learned that, or I would give that person credit!   Although I have learned to spin off of a batt (It's not hard), the rolags are a little more compact.  It's like the fiber knows what to do and almost spins itself out of the rolag.  Well -- not quite.

I am preparing for tomorrow afternoon.  I volunteered to spin at an open house for one of the local alpaca farms in Neenah.  There will be a few other spinners there, too.  I decided to stick with my old standard -- nothing fancy spinning-- because it's too easy to loose track of what you're doing when you're chatting with the other ladies.  

I really do want to start on that fancy art yarn with an art batt ... Soon, but I think that's best done at home where no one will be watching me!