I’ve begun my first sheep to finished object project, the goal is a pair of warm mittens for the husband. The plan is to use some of the Jacob’s cross wool that the SiL gave us and some of the alpaca fleece that husband picked out this year at SAFF. Hopefully carded together will result in a warm, springy batt.
Some of the wool has already been washed and has been sitting in a pillowcase for a while, so this weekend I began washing small portions of the alpaca.
I’ve decided, for no particular reason to go ahead and make batts of the wool and later card the clean alpaca into the wool batts. I think this may be easier than waiting and trying to card both together at once. Then again, this will be my first try at blending so I’m winging it. I do know that the finished batts will probably be run through the carder at least 4 times, to ensure an even distribution of fibers.
My test run - There are some bits of silk in there from when we were playing with the carder after SAFF...
Hopefully I can have enough (I’m thinking about 6 oz worth) carded by the weekend so next week I can spin and knit!
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