carding, combing - best prep for raw fleece for wet felt?

[simplynaturalfarm]

As I mentioned in my intro, I have 3 raw fleeces that I want to eventually use for wet felting - I do boots, mittens, slippers etc. I've been using batts and some roving up til now and trying to figure out how best to convert my raw to something usable. I have carpal tunnel and now trigger finger in 8 fingers (too much hand milking of too many cows my life), so don't want something that is going to exacerbate my problems, although wet felting doesn't seem to bother me.  And I don't have unlimited resources and am a bit muddled from all of my research as to what I have to do in what step. 

Many people swear by the combing alone, but they want fine for spinning and I'm not sure how that translates for wet felting. And the combs for heavy duty fleeces are $250 upwards. . what if it isn't what I want ?! LOL But what if it is and it is way faster and easier than hand carding. . . the combers swear by it for cleaning the wool and removing short from long fibers. But nobody talks about if it is the best for wet felting - we don't need/want all the fibers to be aligned with wet felting (which is why my batts work so well and are less work , so I guess I wonder if the combs are not as good for what I want,

Hand Carding - it seems like it will take a lifetime to get enough done for a pair of boots. The flat han d carders are definitely lower in price, but I can see the curved ones would help with less wrist action required and a lot of hand carding will probably have me in agony. Am I wrong on flat vs curved and reasons for both? 

Drum carding - as far as I can tell,I would have to precard before drum carding as it's most usefulness is for already prepared fleece or blending into batts. And honestly not sure I can come up with $350 for the lowest price drum carders. But maybe I am wrong on how useful a drum carder would be for scoured fleece?

Flicking - less equipment, but don't think it will work with alpaca I have and it does look like it will be time consuming.

I am not against time consuming as everything I do in life is time consuming . But I don't have massive amounts of time to work with fleeces, so just wonder what do you experts recommend? What is the best method to go from fleece to wet felt? I am spoiled by batts right now and even find using roving for thick projects takes forever. 

I was also given a slightly felted fleece - exuberant washing I guess. Is hand carding the best way of dealing with it? 

[MTRuth]

I posted an answer in your intro. Can you find a local wool mill that would process the wool for you? There are several in Montana that take care of the entire process and can make large batts for you.

Depending on how felted the fleece is it might not be worth your effort. Does it pull apart fairly easily? Or is it really matted. Sometimes it isn't worth the effort to try and rehabilitate mishandled fiber.

[simplynaturalfarm]

I don't know of a single person here who hand processes anything or does these kinds of things - most just purchase their yarn at Walmart. I think we are too rural maybe . When I contacted our largest city center (89 miles away) in re. to whether they had a gild (trying to get some help for my daughter and I when we started weaving), I was unable to find anything for help. We kind of have been learning everything on our own although I even advertised in the craigslists and facebook lists I could find hoping somebody would be of help. There are only a few listings even for sheep breeders in ND, and they probably send or sell their fleeces to other states. I did e-mail a few of them to ask for their recommendations and see if maybe they sold fleeces, just waiting for replies

I did search for wool mills in MN but the ones I found only sell their own items.  Do you recommend a mill? I got a few higher prices for making raw fleece to roving which would have been $14 a lb and I wasn't sure if that was justified when I can purchase it for less bulk. 

[simplynaturalfarm]

By the way, after the research I've done on processing wool now, I fully understand and appreciate the prices people charge for batts, rovings, yarn etc !

[MTRuth]

I used Sugar Loaf Wool Mill when I wanted batts made for the yurt I felted. www.sugarloafwool.com/

Their names are Ed and Sue. Very nice people and the most reasonable I found for processing. But still expensive.

If the sheep breeders answer you, they should know where to get wool processed.

[Shepherdess]

wow so many questions. You do not have to precard to drum card. if you want to do some things it helps to start with carded fiber. Curved carders are easier to use then flat ones. I think you will find some of the children like drum carding and even hand carding. People did it for a long time before drum carders were invented. in your intro post I posted a link to the ND guild. Is there a 4H group near by they may have information you can use on where to find wool and equipment. the other place to try is the extension office.
to was wool you need hot water, hotter the better. You soak the wool in very hot soapy water. for 1/2-1 hour. then remove it to another very hot tub of soapy water to soak again. then you can rinse in very hot water. if its still dirty you soak it again. it is important to only ever take the water temperature up or the same. taking it in cold water shocks the wool causing it to felt.
If the fleece is very dirty you can give it an overnight cold soak before doing the hot soaks. it is also important not to agitate the wool while soaking or it will felt. If it was summer you could do a sinuet bath. its letting it ferment in water outside( and down wind) to let the microbes clean it. it still needs a wash after but not nearly as much.
I can tell you that if the fleece is full of hay and other vegetable matter it really is not work the effort of getting it all out. I will look at your other post later.

[wolgelukkig]

I do handprocessing raw fleeces but only for spinning a specific kind of yarn on a spinningwheel because as you mentioned preparing the wool, cleaning, carding or combing is very timeconsuming. For wetfelting I prefer woolroving because in my opinion having the fleeces processed in a mill is more expensive than buying woolroving, but I live in the Netherlands, maybe the situation is different here. For wetfelting it depends on the result you want.I made legwarmers from alpaca and I am now making a coat from wet felted alpaca and I use the alpaca right from the raw fleece, no washing, no carding, no combing. I use the alpaca on a layer of prefelt or wool/silkbatt, but it is also possible to make a kind of prefelt from the raw alpaca itself or you can use silk chiffon or gauze. For making fur I just pull out locks from the fleece and felt them one by one in rows. Because the alpaca is very slippery it is recommended to use some easy felting wool to bind the fibers.

[simplynaturalfarm]

Oh my, another thing I could ferment ! I have never heard of fermenting fleece.

No we do not have 4H group for those things here anymore - there is not enough interest as we are in a very commercially ag intense area. A few people have tried to start up some different things with sheep, hogs and rabbits, but it always ends up fizzling out when one parent tries to be the leader and doesn't have much support. We do have 4H for horses because of the chariot racing interest, but nothing else.

I do know there are 4H sheep leaders south of us about an hour, so I might do some contacting there and find out. We've been to all the local fairs and the entries for things are usually food or crocheted or knitted and never products from raw fleece. But you never know what gems you will find!

[simplynaturalfarm]

Jan 7, 2017 23:49:20 GMT wolgelukkig said:

I do handprocessing raw fleeces but only for spinning a specific kind of yarn on a spinningwheel because as you mentioned preparing the wool, cleaning, carding or combing is very timeconsuming. For wetfelting I prefer woolroving because in my opinion having the fleeces processed in a mill is more expensive than buying woolroving, but I live in the Netherlands, maybe the situation is different here. For wetfelting it depends on the result you want.I made legwarmers from alpaca and I am now making a coat from wet felted alpaca and I use the alpaca right from the raw fleece, no washing, no carding, no combing. I use the alpaca on a layer of prefelt or wool/silkbatt, but it is also possible to make a kind of prefelt from the raw alpaca itself or you can use silk chiffon or gauze. For making fur I just pull out locks from the fleece and felt them one by one in rows. Because the alpaca is very slippery it is recommended to use some easy felting wool to bind the fibers.

I have used alpaca on top of my wool batts and it works very well. I think my problem is that my batt under the alpaca was too thin so the mittens are uneven thickness. 

Maybe I will simply end up continuing to use the alpaca on top, use the friesan fleeces to make a rug and then continue to buy the product I use. A couple of hand carders would not be a huge investment either.

For hand carding for an 11 year old who has very strong hands, what size should I get? I imagine the large would be hard and too much work.


Does a person have to have a couple of different tpi, or could we maybe get away with just 72 for a while? Right now what I buy is batts that are a mix of rambouillet and merino (just the cheapest batts I found) and the other wool I have been using is 25-30 micron.

Thank you all for your advice!

[wolgelukkig]

My best result is with 24-27 newsealand merino wooltop, its softer than you would expect from 24-27 micron.
The laying out of the wool is most crucial.Preferable more very thin layers than one thick. It is easy to control the even thickness when you use a dark colored templet or background for lighter wool and vice versa and wet the wool. You can see thin spots immediately. After a few layers it is more difficult to see so before fulling you hold the piece against a light source to control for thin spots.
Why not experiment with the friesian fleeces? I have done mittens and bracelets by just pulling out hair from the raw fleece like you do with wooltop and it worked well. As you say, it all depends on even thickness.
I like to use handcards and use them frequently for my spinning but I would advise the larger ones, because they give you a larger amount of carded wool in the same time and effort. That having said I would like to mention not many people have skills to use the handcarders properly and if it is for young children I would buy a comb for combing doghair. Cheaper and a lot easier to use. You can watch tele and continue the combing so the children will not get board doing the job.
I had 2 drumcarders, a Louet 72 tpi and a Ashford 120 tpi but after 2 years I sold the 120 tpi because I seldom used it. I remember now I must have finer handcarders too, but, well, never use them as I seem to forget I have them.

[zed]

If you make small samples from your different wools/animals fibres, you'll get a good idea of what they will be best used for.
Personally I'd have the alpaca on the inside of gloves and something sturdier outside.

Sometimes different animal fibres/wools don't work well together, and different breeds/fibres felt at different rates and have different shrinkages so you can end up with a very oddly shaped, uneven felt.

I prefer to separate alpaca locks, then open them up by gragging them softly through my hand carders... there are pics in this gallery of locks/combed locks: feltingandfiberstudio.com/fibers/wool-basics/gallery/

I have a 72 point drumcarder, I put washed or commercially scoured fleece through, I'll try and open up any really clumped pieces before carding, but you just put it through as many times as you need until it is the fineness you need. My 'batts' which come off the drumcarder are not the same as commercial batts though, they are usually more aligned.

[Shepherdess]

making a sample with notes attached can be really helpful. if you start with a 10x10 square you can get the shrinkage really easily. Add a not about haw many layer and weight so you will know for later. When you are thinking of a new project you can go look at your samples and see what you want to use.

[simplynaturalfarm]

Are the lower priced brother drum carders poor quality? I see they can be found hither and yon for the $260-350 range.

And do you need to just make sure to turn your batts 90 degrees like you would when laying wool ? I was trying to figure out why people said batts are nice because the fibers are not aligned, but with a drum carder, the wool should is more aligned. . maybe commercial batts are made differently? I have not had to rotate my purchased batts and they felt very well

[Pandagirl]

I have a Brother, made in the US which was reasonably priced and works well. You may want to check out some used models perhaps on eBay which is where I got my new Brother.

I like the Brother because you can change out drums and even get it motorized later. I'm sure there are plenty of reasonably priced carders that work well.

[MTRuth]

When I use batts I split them in thinner layers and then turn them 90 degrees. Helps to prevent holes in thinner areas because you can see where the thinner areas are more easily and then fill them in.