The sub zero temps in northern Illinois are finding me held up in the house, and I couldn't think of anything warmer to do than pick some wool. :) For those new comers to my blog, below is a shearing from our ram Brick. He is a busy guy that taught Farmer Boy to never turn his back on him, even when there was a fence between them. YIKES! (You can read about Brick here.) As you can see by the vegetation, our sheep do not wear jackets. They live their lives without the hassle of keeping their wool clean... That job is left to me!
There are a few in our flock (in my opinion) that apparently must love to roll profusely in their bedding. Those little beasties' fleeces are always hard to pull apart after being cleaned. A few have been left unprocessed in their holding tubs. I honestly cringed at the thought of trying to get them fluffy enough to run through the drum carder. (Please check out the Baby Brother Drum Carder here.) After much research, I decided to break down and buy a wool picker. After checking out several reviews, I opted for a Fancy Kitty.
All I simply have to do is push the wool up through the left, make a few passes over it with the sharp projectiles ( located under the handle and on the base) and viola fluffy fleece gathers up at the right. This piece of fleece went through a few passes, and it was amazing the amount of vegetable matter (VM) that fell out. For my high vegetation beasties, the Fancy Kitty will save me hours of picking and pulling by hand. Makes me wonder how I lived without it! :)
A matted looking section of Brick fleece before picking...
A fluffy picked cloud of Brick fleece, after the Fancy Kitty Picker got done with it!
A few passes through the Brother Manual Drum Carder, and I have some spinning material!
I was very impressed with the construction of the wool picker from Fancy Kitty. It really did perform like a dream and will be getting a work out over next few weeks... I signed up for Amy King's "Foundations of Spinning" class on Craftsy and am in desperate need of some fiber to spin. ;)
***Note*** If you have the winter humdrums, check out the classes on Craftsy. They have Quilting & Embroidery, Drawing & Painting, Wool Processing & Knitting/Crocheting, along with Cooking/Baking & Decorating... Supplies/ Patterns and so much more! Their classes do not disappoint, and the new ones are currently 50% off. What better than to learn and ask questions at your own pace? And your classes become yours to view... even after completion!!
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