After waiting for almost 6 weeks, my Louett Drum carder finally arrived from Paradise Fibers. Actually, it was drop shipped from Louett in New Jersey.
I love this new toy! I have all these great ideas now on what kinds of fibers I want to blend together.
There are a couple of reasons to card. (either with a drum carder or hand cards)
Color:
- If you are looking to blend colors to create a new color
- to create a colorway with each color still retaining its original color but striped.
- have the final fiber take on the properties of both (i.e. blend wool with nylon to add stregnth)
- Create an all together different texture than the original fibers.
This was my first attempt at carding on my new Louett:
I took some Lama which I got at the 2006 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (Portia!) and blended it with Louett Chestnut Silk/Merino and some gold Angelina
What is pictured here was not the same ratio carded. I used 3 parts Lama to 1 part Wool/Silk and only a pinch of the gold Angelina.
I carded each fiber separately first, then recarded them together to create this batt
My goal was to enhance the Lama’s ability to hold it’s shape by adding wool/silk and then to give it a little sparkle with the Angelina.
This is how it is spinning on my Golding:
I really love the resulting color. Of course now I need to card all the fiber up the same way so that my project will all be consistant, but this was just my first experiment.