A year ago I invested in a very nice Pat Greene drum carder. The small model - Deb's Delicate Deluxe, hand-turned. It arrived, and I had a plan to use it at May workshop on carding/blending which got cancelled due to low enrollment - and there it has sat, for a year and more.
This weekend, I had a few friends over, put out some snacks, and organized a kick in the butt for myself. The drum carder, which I have now named DeeDee, was duly christened. Here's the first production run!
Batt(s) 1: Superwash merino mill ends, handpainted in a mesh bag and now carded into this lovely, streaky, "Beachy" watercolour-way:
Those are in fact the same dye lot - the color layering pulled out differently. A spinner could be quite adventurous in how they work up, mix'n'match, or keep separate and coordinate.
Batt(s) The Second: A blend of the SW merino mill ends and some lovely soft Romeny lamb locks. I have dyed bagfuls of each, and when it came to blending picked adjacent colours (blue-green/green, yellow-green/green,violet/magenta-red) to make more monochrome but beautifully rich, heathered batts.
Batt(s) the Third: Using the same adjacent-colour blending, these last two are 100% Romney lamb. The dyes were bright jewel-tones, but on gray fleece. Made some lovely toned colours.
I have to show you a close-up of the last one:
I like that one enough that it might not make it into the Etsy shop.
More fluffy adventures are to come! There may need to be more dyeing, but I've begun rootling the fluff stash too for some little add-in goodies like seacell/silk fibres, angelina (sparkles!), and some lovely blending bits of mohair, alpaca, and llama.
1 comment:
Those are so beautiful Johanna, I can't wait to see what else you come up with!
Post a Comment