Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ugly Batt/Trashcan Batt...

Ugly batt, trashcan batt. I've heard of them before. They are batts made out of the scraps, leftovers from carding sessions. Some people sell said batts, so I've been saving scraps in a little bag for a while. Today for the hell of it, I carded them up. I only ran it through twice to avoid making "mud".

I actually like this! Lots of grey with color peeking through! I only had enough for one batt, but it'll make a nice single to ply with a darker grey I think. I wished I'd put a bit more red, but hey...it's just an experiment! Click onto the bottom pic to see a real close up! Kewl, huh?


Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fancy Kitty Kitten motorized Drumcarder in action!

HA! I made a video with lots of help from my DD, Angela, my little techno wiz! I've been wanting to make some rainbow batts for sometime now, and I got some sparkley Firestar in. So it started of with making small 1/2 oz batts of rainbow colors. Firestar is camera shy, but it sure is sparkly! I then took these batts, tore them into 4 strips, and predrafted them really thin to run through the Kitten in strips. Now you can look at the video and see how I used the motorized base to diz the fiber off the drumcarder into beautiful roving, all ready to spin! Yo!u'll hear some clacking noise on the video...it isn't my Kitten drumcarder, it's a grandbaby playing with a toy truck! There's just no escaping them

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Batty Spinning!

I made several batts with my Kitten drum carder with the new motorized base. I really love spinning from batts. I think it's better than spinning with comb top because I can get fluffier yarn and spin long draw with the batts.
I like to take my batts and divide it into 8 peices, then roll them up with the length of the fiber to make rolrags. I can then predraft these a bit and roll them up into little nests, ready to spin. Now this yarn is the batt I carded up from the California Red and bamboo. It's hard for the camera to pick up all the wonderful Angelina in the fiber, but it's so sparkley and the yarn came out so yummy. The yarn was spun on my little Midi wt Bosworth. I got about 100 yards of woolen spun, fingering weight yarn off one spindle full. I Navajo plied for a 3 strand yarn. I'm thinking a pair of fingerless mitts would really be nice.
My spinning wheel has been neglected, so I started a bobbin this morning. I'll try to finish this up today. I dyed some wool and want to do some rainbow batts tomorrow!