I was a carding fool this weekend! I made art bats, which were a total blast:
I dyed BFL, Merino/silk, Merino/mohair, Merino/bamboo and superwash Merino in three dye pots: red, blue and black. Different pots getting different combinations of wool. I found that the Superwash Merino took the dye the best of all of them, giving me jet-black roving. The BFL and Merino/mohair came out gray-black.
The colored bits are sari silk. This bat had a base of black BFL, with some red Merino/silk and what I think is straight bamboo (although I have no idea where I got it).
I made two bats similar to this one. The other one produced this yarn:
The sparkly bits in both the bat and the yarn is ultraviolet Angelina fiber.
Eventually, I got tired of making bats out of my limited supply of stuff and turned to my stash for inspiration. I pulled out some washed locks of brown Polwarth and brown Merino and decided to combine them and card them up. While I was carding, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with about a pound of brown wool. It was beautiful and soft but it wasn't inspiring me. While rooting around in my stash, I found some Firestarr that had been in my stash for so long I'd forgotten I had it. The lightbulb went on. After quite a few hours of carding, splitting, carding again, splitting, carding, adding Firestar, carding, adding more Firestar, splitting and carding yet again, I ended up with 10 gorgeous, sparkly bats:
The one on top is smaller than the others and I added a bit too much Firestar. Eventually, I'll spin up all this bounty and probably knit a shawl. Or maybe a vest. (The sparkle isn't really this obvious but I had to use the flash so the picture would come out. Oh, and I've already straightened that picture.) Using just had cards, it would have taken me at least 5 times longer to get all that wool carded and blended. Darn, I have more brown locks (Corriedale, I think) in the basement that I could have carded. It's a good thing that at our next Guild meeting I plan on renting one of the drum carders my Guild owns. I kind of doubt I'll be getting a drum carder for Christmas so renting is the next best option. I have about a third of a fleece of beautiful Cormo that needs carding. Guess what I'll be doing over the holidays?
I was lucky - my dad gave me his drum carder when he gave me his spinning wheel. Looks like you're having more fun than I am, though. Hmmm...
Posted by: gayle | October 31, 2011 at 11:44 AM