Batts and batts and batts…

A little carried away...

Ah, weekend!For me, this means more time to play with the carder!

Pre-carding mess
Pre-carding mess

Fueled by marzipan rose tea and macaroni, I ended up making…well, quite a few batts. I got kind of carried away. But they were all so pretty!

A little carried away...
A little carried away…

Most of these I’m putting up on the Etsy site, but I do want very badly to spin some of these myself. I did reserve a couple just for me to play with…the best part was, most of these batts have at least some of the new wool I’d just finished dyeing, and a couple are almost all dyed by me. I’m feeling kinda proud, really. Even though I pricked my finger on a thorn in a bit of wool when I was nearly finished. Kind of a Sleeping Beauty moment, really, and I couldn’t even blame it on the spinning wheel. I bleed for my hobbies, people!! (Happily, not *on* my hobbies. I slapped a bandage on right after all the hopping up and down and cursing…)

Shreddica…

The finished spinning batts

One of the reasons I’ve been wanting to dye large quantities of wool is so I can make nice big spinning batts with my drum carder. I love that thing so; so much so that it has a name: Shreddica. And it’s a wonderful beast. It takes a chaotic handful of fluff and blends it into something really grand for spinning. Before I got Shreddica I mostly used hand cards, which took a while, or just shredded things with my fingers. (I still do that quite a bit with locks where I want to keep their shape.) Sometimes I have friends over and make them crank Shreddica while I feed wool through it’s hungry mouth, yelling, “Crank faster, carding-slave!” Oddly enough, people obey. I’m guessing feeding them cake and booze first helps…

A handful of fluff
A handful of fluff

I couldn’t keep my greedy mitts off the plum Shetland I just dyed, so I fed some to Shreddica, along with fistfuls of white mohair, border leister, a little merino and some leftover angora…

The finished spinning batts
Plum Candy spinning batt

I also found some of my dark red had dried enough for me to play with, so into Shreddica it went, along with fistfuls of black merino and red-dyed “black” angora. I want to spin this one up myself, I think, instead of sticking it in the shop

Deep Red spinning batt
Deep Red spinning batt