It was far too nasty for my granddaughter, who is visiting for the weekend, to go outside yesterday, so I decided that carding some wool would be a good distraction from the awful weather.
For full fleeces and large carding projects, I send my wool to Abi at High Prairie Fibers. But for small batches and experimentation, I use a Louet Jr drum carder. It does exactly what I need (except for very fine carding, and I have some cotton hand cards for that), quickly and efficiently. And it keeps a 7 year old pretty fascinated, what with turning the handle, and that ice-pick thing, and the stiff brush that can clean the drums and take the skin off your knuckles at the same time.
We got a lot of nice batts carded. None of these were done *from scratch*- all were pre-processed in some way or another. I usually recard large batts and compacted roving, so having help this time, actually did help (as opposed to when she *helps* me clean).
We carded green wool/mohair/camel down from my friend Dana, whose camel was featured in a recent issue of Spin-Off. And some of her raspberry/rust camel down/wool that is incredibly soft; nearly a pound of wool/mohair/silk noil in blues, pinks and greens from Kelly Knispel (South Dakota Colored Wool Studio); about 4 ozs of natural dyed yellow/brown wool from Connie Wagenaar-Henning (that I bought along with some lighter yellow wool, that is already spun-into sock yarn, of course), and some soft roving, probably merino but it's not labeled, in purple, fuchsia, and purple/orange, all with a little glitz, that I got at the North Country Fiber Fair last year. The 7 year old claimed that for herself (asking for pajama bottoms but settling for a future hat) and I spun a bobbin and a half last night.
I'm on the last week of the first half of the sock book deadline, so it'll be writing all day, every day until Thursday, but I'll probably spin in the evenings, so there will be new yarn in the house.
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