Traditionalists should probably stop reading now!

Lets begin with this simple fact; carding is tedious and slow! Especially when your carding brushes are actually cat slicker brushes from Wilkinson! (Yes I know I haven't yet got around to  explaining the best way I found to brush with something that is actually to small to do the job properly.)

Mr and Mrs Prehistoric couldn't pop out to pets at home to get slicker brushes or go online so what did THEY do?

As an archaeologist I fid this question intriguing. Maybe they used teasels? (Memo to self: it's the right time of year so go see if there any about in the park that you can pick to experiment.)

Maybe however they just span straight from the fleece with minimal preparation.

So this is what I decided to try.

Technique:

My fleece was only washed in plain water so I'll be 'spinning in the grease' but Mr and Mrs Prehistoric's soap supply was unlikely to include anything more efficient than soapwort leaves which I wouldn't recognise if I stepped on them.

Another memo to self: Find out if I can set this blogger dictionary to flipping English so it stops telling me to spell things the American way!!

Where as I?

Oh yes.

What I have tried is this; I pulled bits away from the fleece in areas where the bats are not terribly distinct. Pulling bits out stretches the fibres into more or less the same alignment and then I made a small rolag held in my left fist.

Then I started to spin. As I came to the end of each rolag I made another and another.

Results:

well, the yarn can best be described as uneven, but that may be partly due to the fact that I suck at making rolags and am not that good at spinning yet. Some of it, however, is probably due to the blobbiness of the unbrushed fleece.

Photo section:

This shows a skein made from the fleece wool. That wool was carded as best I could with my cat slicker brushes, rolled into rolags and spun. It's been washed since then, but is still a little harsh to the touch. I'm going to try soaking it in a dense fabric softener solution as someone suggested on Wednesday. The yarn on the spindle is spun straight from the fleece and then plied ( as it was very thin in places and thick in others so  decided that plying was best if I want to use it.
As you can see, both are pretty chunky spins.

This one is to demonstrate that the chunkiness may be due to my lack of skill in creating rolags. This wool was made from ready to spin rovings of different colours. I  took habdsful from each colour and made a new rolag. Chunky is definitely the word!

Comparison between yarn made straight from the fleece, and yarn mae from a rolag of rovings.

I was in two minds whether to wash this yarn from the fleece of not, but think that I will with this one so that I can compare it better with the others.

I'll wash it and let it soak in fabric softener and see what it's like when it's dry. It will probably take a few days to dry as the weather is now cold and wet.