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Creating with Wool

We have been preparing wool for spinning, or for quilt batting.

Here is a pictorial description of the process as far as we have accomplished.
We begun with wool just sheared from my parents sheep. The children enjoyed watching the shearing process, but I forgot to photograph the process for this page. I may get some pictures the next year to add here. 

The process begins with washing the wool, in a tub of warm (not hot) water cleaning it in shampoo for oily hair. It removes the extra lanolin from the wool.
Here is a picture of the clean, dry washed wool.

I washed this wool in water that was a bit too warm, and the wool tried hard to felt up. To card it was a challenge because we had to really tug to separate the wool apart for carding.


Here is the drum carder with some wool aready on it.


To card the wool you crank the handle clockwise and the small drum rotates counterclockwise. The large drum rotates faster causing the wool to be brushed well. The wool eventually gets packed onto the large drum once that happens you have to manually remove the wool. The wool is fed into the carder from the left side and is snagged by the bristles on the small drum. It quickly is spun around the bottom of the drum and gets caught between both drums causing it to be brushed.


You can tell that the carder is full because the bristles no longer are visible on the drum, so it is time to remove the wool now.


The wool is removed by using a small card (brush) in the opposite direction to gently pull the wool off the drum. You have to brush the wool clockwise and pull it apart to separate one end of bunch.


Continue brushing gently clockwise to remove the wool.


The carded wool is fluffy and soft. The ruler is a 15 in. ruler. 


The carded bunch of wool is now ready to be used for spinning or as quilt batting. (That will be described on another page as we progress to that stage here.)


Keep checking back as we continue our project and create new pages explaining our progress on it. Our goal at this time is to make a quilt for the winter using fabric scraps, a bedsheet, and wool & dryer lint for batting. This is an experimental project and I'll let you know how it works out. The theory is that if the wool is blended with the lint then it won't felt up when packed together from use or washing. If the wool felts* then the insulating qualities of the batting will be reduced because of it not being able to hold the heat well. 

The next page is on the cutting of the quilt squares. Come meet us over there next! :)