In Which the Pirate Cards.

The weather this past weekend kept me indoors, and I decided to use some of my time to start carding Fleece Four-Twelve. I chose a section of fleece at random (it was the piece nearest me on the floor) and started by opening up the locks on the teasing tool so that the carder wouldn’t choke on them:

Then I fed them to the carder sideways (yes, sideways!) until the drum was full, packing it down a few times with a scrub brush so I could fit more fibre on. Even with the drum carder, it’s a slow, slow process. Too much fibre at once, or cranking too quickly, will cause lumps and bumps in the batt. The fibre needs to go on the input tray in a super-thin layer – so thin that you can read the “keep hands clear” sticker on there. (They aren’t kidding. The licker-in drum will mangle your hands if you get too close. Those pointy bits are *sharp*.)

After the first pass through the carder, the batt was super fluffy but not done yet. It needs to be run through at least once more to get all those fibers aligned and the batt even all the way across. I’d like to get to that tonight, after grocery shopping and cooking dinner. If Four-Twelve really is going to be my Tour de Fleece project, I need to move the carding way up on the priorities list.

(I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not going to get all that fleece carded in time for the TdF, though.)