As well as dyeing the lambswool tops, I have been painstakingly hand picking over a superfine fleece I purchased locally, and removing all the tiny bits of vegetation before dyeing it.
There's something so beautiful about locks don't you think? The fine wave of the crimp, the delicate softness, the curl at the tip...
I wanted to make a batt with both the prepared tops and the fleece, and somehow preserve the locks a little - I didn't want them to be fully carded by the drum carder (or "mulcher" as my older son calls it!).
After some trial and error I found a technique that worked - painstakingly adding the locks directly onto the large drum (rather than feeding them in on the small drum) and then running the packer brush over them. I'm pretty happy with the results - what do you think? I added some silk too because I just love the shine and the water-like squiggle of it...
A close-up of the locks in the batt. I apologise for the poor photography - my dear, wonderful, waterproof camera is not, as it turns out, waterproof anymore and died a sad death at the beach last month...
