need help with terms

[felicity]

Sorry for my ignorance but what is the name of wool which is in colourful rolls on the background of the blog? Is it just "carded wool"? Or what?

[koffipot]

Ask anything you like and we'll try to help. It's how we all learn.

Yes, carded wool in rolled up 'batts'. The flat piece of carded wool is called a 'batt'. These will have been carded by machine - a drum carder. Carding by hand produces a very small batt.

[felicity]

Thank you, Judith! Do you often use carded wool in wet felting? Or it's not that common? I suppose it needs to be felted differently from tops...

[Shepherdess]

Roving is more tangled than top and has different lengths of fibers. When they card the wool first you get batts or if the pull it off the machine in a rope its roving. If they then put it through another process called combing, it removes the short fiber and lines all the long fiber in the same direction. originally you used roving to make a wool yarn (it is softer and loftier) and top to make worsted (smooth and more compact, with a tighter twist usually) yarn.
If you have a drum carder and you recard top after you have dyed it or to blend colours you usually end up with something that is between the two.
It can be very confusing because many places call top, roving. It is hard to find true roving these days.
I hope that helps. If not ask about the confusing bits and we will try to make sense of them.

[Karen]

Hi felicity, the wool in this background is from Merino cross sheep, its a coarser fiber and mainly used in needle felting although it can also be wet felted, it was carded on a drum carder, hand dyed using food coloring and then carded again into batts, its a lot of fun to dye and card your own fiber

[felicity]

Ann, Karen, thank you very much! It looks so beautiful! I think, I've never seen such a wool ("batts") in the local shops, only tops...

[Shepherdess]

It is usualy someone that is blending colours themselves that sells them.

[felicity]

Thanks, Ann, I understand now!