Noelle had a little lamb

My first attempt at a needle felted lamb.  Made of 100% wool, with no chemical processing.

Wet felting, a first try

So, as you know I bought an Ashford Joy spinning wheel a few weeks ago, and have not yet figured out how to spin.  I signed up for a class, so that problem will be solved soon.  I was perusing the Ashford website and ran across their Ashford club.  It was not too expensive so I joined.  One of the benefits, other than the coolness of getting a magazine mailed to me from New Zealand, is they have member's only competitions.  They have two different competitions going on right now, both for different drum carders.  Oh how I would love to have one!  The one that expires soon, I just cant think of anything for.  But the one that expires at the end of June, well now that inspired me.

The challenge:
Prepare a batt blending colours and or fibres using an Ashford Drum Carder or Ashford Hand carders and then show us what you have made with the batt.  The winner gets a new Drum Carder!


Well, I had just purchased an Ashford flick carder, so what a way to christen it than for an Ashford competition!  No, I have no hope for winning, this being my first carding project and my first wet felting project, but ... I just have to try!  I may use this first one as my trial, and then do it again for the contest.

I started with a roving of black Corriedale wool and another of natural undyed Merino wool.  I was very curious how these two opposite colors would blend.  To use a flick carder you only have one carder, and then you 'flick' it on a heavy piece of leather, blending the different fibers. 

You can see my little pile of mixed fibers coming together,  I wasnt trying for a true gray but more of a variegated look.  This happened to be harder than I thought it would be.  I tried using the carder like a comb as well, which did about as well.

 What to make....well for my first project, I am just going to make up a small square table decoration, just something to try out the process.  So first, you need bubble wrap, the small kind, and some kind of fine mesh.  I used an old sheer curtain piece.  The bubble wrap helps with the felting with the bumpy surface.  You start by laying small thin sections of the batt on the sheer which is on top of the bubble wrap.  I really should have had a piece of bubble wrap that was larger than my project, this did prove to be the first problem with this trial.

 Then alternating directions you put on at least 4 or more layers

 Then cover it with another layer of sheer.  Then comes the 'felting' part.  This is where you wet the felt lightly with soapy water, and then rub on the top of it, going in all directions.  You do this until the felt no longer pulls hairs off when you test it.  Then comes the fulling part.  This is where you roll it up in a tube and and then roll it back and forth, tightening your roll up if it gets loose.  You do this until when you pull on the grain of the fabric, it doesnt pull apart.  I thought I had done both of these steps enough.  Now you rinse it alternately in hot then cold water.  This is the first time having two sinks in the bathroom was actually useful.

 Then you roll it up in a towel to get all the water out. and then you let it air dry.

What I learned from this project, is see here where I was trying for some dimension with having a middle stripe of fibers going the opposite way?  I did not pull these fibers as thin as the rest of the fabric and they also did not felt as well and are not stuck as well as the rest. 

I certainly like the carding for blending the fiber, but am not yet sure I like wet felting.  I may try blending some more and then trying out needle felting, which I have done once before a little of.

Fleece, its what you need to spin!

So to go along with my new spinning wheel I want to also learn to prepare fleece.  I did some research and for American wool, there are a few breeds of sheep that are easier to spin than others.  I read about some of the breeds and decided a full blood Romney is the breed I want to try to find and spin.  I found several folks on the internet who sold Romney roving (already prepared for spinning) but I wanted to do it myself.  I have practiced some with carding with Liesl, but have not done it alone yet.  I also researched the difference between carding and combing, and based on the type of fleece I am planning on obtaining, I want to comb it.  Tool research is next.

When looking for a fleece, I ran across Skylines Farm http://www.skylinesfarm.com/ in Idaho.  They are a small run farm, and avoid chemicals in their practices.   http://www.skylinesfarm.com/managementpractices.htm Their sheep are raised specifically for spinning fleece.  They have sound fleece practices and I loved their photos and information they shared on their website.  I emailed Melissa and we had a great dialog back and forth and she answered all my questions.    I decided to start small, and the sheep Bonnie had a lovely half a fleece available - see here is a photo of it:

I will be getting 4 pounds of it, look how clean and lovely it looks! What is so cool, is I can even reserve Bonnie's or any of their other sheep wools not yet spoken for,  for next year.  That is almost like its my sheep :) Isn't that cool? 

There are several types of both natural color, and white sheep on this farm.  I wanted to start with white, mainly because I plan to try to dye it too.  BUT, they had this really lovely almost black fleece they had not sold yet.  I dont think two fleece are in my budget nor expertise, but I asked Melissa if I could maybe just have a little lock of this lamb's fleece, just to how it feels/looks compared to Bonnie and she said no problem.  See look at this, isnt the color beautiful!  Maybe next year?

What fun this adventure is going to be!