prepare wool for spinning - PEP BB textiles.straw.woolprep

I did this some time ago and I'm borrowing the photos from my old blog: https://itissunnyatebertshome.blogspot.com/2013/12/handcarding-wool-for-spinning-some.html

Raw fibre: an Icelandic sheep named Cloud



You can see both the raw fibre and the finished pile in this photo.



fibre on hand cards



an attempt to show in process



fluffy and organized



In the photo is about 300g, but I did end up doing the entire fleece by hand.

Why choose hand carding?  Icelandic fleece have an undercoat and a longer, hairy coat.  I wanted to maintain the texture of blending the both together and I find that hand carding is fastest and most efficent for this kind of fleece.  Also, hand cards are affordable and portable.  

During a bicycle trip in summer I saw this spotted sheep's fleece, which the farmer happily gave me for free! I wanted to use the wool for filling pillows a.a. But this can give me a BB and points, so I prepared 250 grams of the wool for spinning.
I used the (dog's) comb to prepare the wool because it was there. I don't have 'cards'.
After combing there are two qualities of wool: one better quality for spinning, the other for filling pillows. From the 400 grams of unprepared wool I started with I ended with 250 grams of wool for spinning.


One pannier full of (dirty) wool!


Washed the fleece.


And let it dry (took a few days).


About 400 grams of unprepared wool.


Unprepared wool at the right, comb in the middle, combed wool at the left.


Close up of combed wool and comb.


I'll put the combed wool in this net for weighing.


Yes, it's 250 grams of combed wool!

Here is my submission for the Prepare Wool for Spinning BB - Textile Aspect - straw.

I chose to use wool from Penny, a sheep that I raised for about 6 years.  She is a crossbreed: Suffolk, Polypay, and Rambouillet.  I sheared her and washed then processed her fleece.

I decided to process her wool using my electric drum carder.  Drum carders produce batts from which you can make a wide range of yarns.  I want to make a fairly fluffy yarn and the drum carder does a good job of preparing the fiber.  
I have also used hand cards, combs, and a picker.  You can read more here about the processing to prepare your fiber for yarn.

To document my completion of this BB, I have posted:
 -  a photo of Penny
 -  a photo of Penny's fiber (after washing)
 -  several photos of the process of drum carding the fiber
 -  a photo of the prepared fiber ready for spinning

A nearby homesteading woman gave her 18 year old llama a haircut, and asked if anyone wanted the wool. How could I resist!

It's a LOT of wool (it filled up a giant trash bag)



I put half of it into the sink at a time. The first batch, I didn't skirt, and I very much regretted it. The wool simply would not come clean! The second half of the wool washed much nicer and faster. For both batches, I used coconut oil soap that was made by a local homesteader. I hauled hot water by the blender-jug-full out to the sink. I sure got my exercise! But, it worked a lot better than trying to boil the water and add it.



I draped it over our drying rack to dry. But, since it's not a fleece (as llamas aren't supposed to be sheared that close to their body), it liked to come apart and float away.



I hand carded the wool, using wool carders gifted to me by Judith Browning (thank you!). The llama wool is interesting to card, because it brushes out so easily, and doesn't really stick to itself, making it kind of hard to roll.



I've now carded about 1/3rd of the wool. And it's filled my bag to overflowing, so I figured it was time to weigh it!



Here's a close up of the scale, showing over 1 pound of washed and carded wool

I updated the requirements to be specifically wool from a sheep.  

Any approved applications above this are grandfathered in.  

I prepared (over) 8 ounces of wool from my Gulf Coast Sheep for spinning!

I hired a shearer, skirted the wool, scoured it with Kookaburra "biodegradable"/"plant-based" wool scour, let the wool dry, removed undesirable bits I had missed in the first skirting/scouring, and used my Ashford drum carder to card the wool into batts for spinning or felting. I was able to save some of the shorter and courser bits of fleece I removed for stuffing and/or felting core wool.

While I have used hand cards to prepare rolags of wool in the past, I used a drum carder to prepare batts this time because it is quicker and easier for me. I have also tried using hand combs in the past, but found the Gulf Coast Native wool isn’t slippery enough to move through the combs easily, at least with my naive technique.

I used food coloring to dye this batch of wool, but I also have an undyed fleece I had prepared earlier. (Unfortunately, I don't have as many prep photos of that fleece so I used the dyed bunch for this badge bit.)

I got a lovely black-and-white fleece for finishing my PhD. The total weight was over 3kgs, and this is a bit less than a quarter of it. I struggled to get my scales to register this small weight, but hopefully it is obviously more than 8 oz / 220g!

I typically like to spin in the grease, but this fleece was quite dirty, so needed a serious cleaning prior to turning into rolags. I scoured it to get more of the dirt/grime out. As this was a medium-fineness fleece, it could take some boiling and agitation without felting. Were I working with fine merino, I'd have ended up with a horrible mess!

Hello skip team! My friend, who has sheep, showed me how to spin wool roving she had, and gave me a drop spindle to play with. Once I made a teensy bit of yarn, I'm HOOKED! X-0 SO.... she gave me some raw wool as well. I'm so grateful, because I know it's quite expensive! I've also learned SO MUCH! In these pictures, I show a number of things I tried with the clumps of very short, brown fiber she gave me, the longer, white wool she gave me, and various tools.

I started with almost a pound of each. After skirting out vegetable matter and "seconds" (pilled, fluff-ball fibers) I tried carding it with these doggie brushes. It was ok for the short-stitch length in the brown wool, but made a mess of the white wool. So most of this wool, I flicked using one brush. Then I would roll a few pieces together to make a rolag.  The brown clouds I made at first were very difficult to spin, so I decided to try adding in some of the medium-length white fibers I had left (after brushing all the beautiful, fun, long ones!) The mixed fibers make a cool combo color and spins well into chunky yarn, which I prefer to crotchet with, anyways.

I apologize for the many pictures of weighing the wool. I wanted to try different methods, and spin it as I went, so I could find the best method that works for me, so I would make a small batch, less than two ounces, usually, at a time.