I apologize for my sloth in blogging. Apparently when I spend more time on FB, I blog less. I wrote most of this as a comment on Nadine’s blog, since she got her Kitten the same day I got mine, then got to thinking I ought to post, so I’m half-recycling… Upcycling my comment! That’s it! 🙂
I have made, lessee…about 6 batts? (turmeric-dyed suffolk wool; strawberry kool aid dyed grey shetland layered with the natural grey shetland; a bunch of stuff all mixed up to play; dorset wool blended with grape alpaca, which I am spinning and is very soft and pretty; I have some Jacob fleece all picked to go in next, along with more of the strawberry shetland…) Maybe more.
I do NOT like cleaning the yellow wool off the drums. Or the red. Or whatever color, but I DO like colors to card up, so, I guess that is just tough for me, huh?
I have a growing pile of “stuff I cleaned off”, which I had the clever idea of letting my friend have to felt onto soaps, and then I remembered a lot of it is down-breed sheep that doesn’t wet-felt. Drat. I think a lot of that stuff (from the main drum, not the licker-in) is going to be used for teaching spindling.
But, I love my Fancy Kitty Kitten drumcarder too! 🙂 Together with my Kaydessa Wool Picker thing I can produce faster, but, I must say, it is a bit like with my wheel: I love it and it is faster, but SO not portable! I usually use the picker outside so I can dump all the chaffy stuff more easily. I have the Kitten on my dining room table (you might be suspicious, but if you have been in my house you would know that I have a very large dining room table and one end is for eating and the other end is covered with books and wool and what we would generally refer to as “crap”, but not if we were more polite) and I keep it covered up with some packing foam sheet thing so people and real kitties don’t get bitten by it. Since one needs to run fiber through at least twice AND the thing needs to be cleaned off between different colors, I don’t often do more than a couple of batts in any given day. I watched and LOVED the YouTube videos that Rexene made about how to use a drum carder! Those, along with the very helpful instructions that came with the Kitten from Ron, got me started. And made sure I figured out without too much “duh” how to make a layered batt. Whoo hoo!
Anyhow, my Brown Bag Enrichment Lunch series at school seems to be a big hit. We’ve had over 15 kids sign up for each of the sessions. And for my session on Entomology, several of the kids stayed after I said they could go to recess and IDed some plastic bugs with me. 🙂
I made some more of the hand-pulled roving balls so I can add them to my shop after the Phat Fiber Boxes go on sale. I have some of the Enchanted Castle Cotton and Princess Bamboo tie-dyed yarns, too. Must remember to actually LIST them on Etsy at the right time, now. lol
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