Friday, August 5, 2011

A New Hobby



I have been really spoilt these last few weeks with some new toys. This post and pics is all about my new Ashford fine tooth drum carder. It is so much fun! Making a finished product from right back at the fleece coming off the sheep.
The above is half a bale of Arapawa fleeces in varying shades. Arapawa is on the Rare Breeds List and is a lovely fleece a lot like Merino. My darling hubby was bringing a tiny Nissan March down from Taranaki and I purchased this for him to pick up on the way through. I was hoping it wouldn't be too stinky - He didn't complain. Phew.


I didn't have any scouring liquid so thought that the bath and shampoo would work fine. Ew what a job. The amount of yuck that comes out is rather nasty - not for the light tummied. After it was washed though it was lovely. I just squeezed it out and threw the different shades of fleece into pillowcases and spun it in the washing machine. I later dyed some of the light fleece and then carded it together in a cotton candy batt.
After watching a wonderful clip on YouTube I decided to pull it off into a ready to spin roving. I just made a little hole in a plastic bottle top and this worked great.

Here it is - all ready to spin....... Watch this space.



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