I do love blending fiber and colors to make beautiful and unique handspun creations. It's pretty labor intensive...not only does the carding process take quite a bit of monotonous cranking, but I usually make a pretty big mess in the process. I can't just take a few fibers from the pile and blend them; I have to take out my entire scrap and carding stash and lay it all out and pick handfuls of what I feel would match up well together. Once I have all this out and set up, it's impracticable to put it away at the end of the day, so I tend to do my carding in week-long sessions where the dining room table is occupied by piles of fiber, and we have to sit on the floor in the next room to eat. I need to use good judgement as far as my timing goes.
Plus, all the fur flying in the process means that my vacuum cleaner makes a death rattle in protest. Worrisome. I plead with it daily.
After much experimentation, I find that the batts I like best are under 2oz. They just hang together a bit better into compact bundles, and because I'm not jamming so much on the carded, I end up with less waste as well.
Everything can be found in my Etsy Shop, and I will be listing more in the coming days. Each batt is made up of merino or a super luxe blend that might contain merino, alpaca, silk, bamboo, faux cashmere, BFL, cashgora, angora and kid mohair. Most of it I have hand dyed; some of it is natural sheepy colored; still other bits are leftover from spinning projects that have accumulated over the years. All of it is super soft and ready to be made into a special yarn.
Best of all, anything 2oz and under is only $12-$13 as I only have so much space to store big, fluffy batts and I need to move these things so I can make more.
www.KnotMyDayJob.etsy.com
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