My mother “bought” a Romney fleece for the ridiculous price of $15 from a local farmer. I didn’t see it to begin with but I gather it was very dirty. She and my dad scrubbed and sorted and washed and dried. The thing is probably worth $1500 in blood, sweat and tears by now. But we’re having fun with it, at least my mother and I are! Here are some before and after picks of us carding the washed locks into “top” which I then spun on a quickly improvised drop spindle.
Here’s a bag of washed locks . . .
Note here that neither of us really have any idea how to card wool so constructive comments only please! Placing the locks on the cards . . .
Carding and the resultant fluff . . .
This picture to show that you can indeed spin wool with just about any old stick and round thingy (very fat crochet hook stuck through a spool of ribbon taped to a CD shown here) The top card was spun from a rolag-ish piece and the bottom card from a more top-ish piece. I can’t say I could tell much difference. I’m sure it will be more obvious as we get more practiced.
And one last picture to show the after – carded spinnable fluff on the left and the before – washed locks on a hand card on the right.
And right now that fiber is in a dye bath in the oven. Better go check on it!
-
Wow, your fiber is so consistently even. I’m impressed. jan
-
Looking good. That’s some impressively fine spinning wrapped on the index cards. Gotta love the simple pleasures, eh?
-
Thanks Deb! It was a very lightweight spindle and I have a natural tendency to spin fine so I don’t think that fiber had a chance of getting fatter. I do have a goal to spin some bulky. Making things out of your own hands is a magical pleasure.
-
Comments are now closed.
3 comments