After what seemed like a lot of research I decided to get the Fancy Kitty drum carder. I chose it because it's hand made from solid oak right here in America by a nice fellow named Ron Anderson, who is proud of his quality craftsmanship (as he should be for this really is a quality product!) When I was researching and inquiring about which carder to get many people recommended the Louet carder, but recently the design changed and they are no longer making it out of wood, (it's laminate now.) I like the idea of solid oak better! Another deciding factor was that the Fancy Kitty has a really affordable motorized kit that I can save up for.
and here it is!
We've already made a big stack of beautiful batts!
You must have clean wool to begin so the drum carder doesn't get all greasy. I found great instructions for scouring in the washing machine here. As recommended by Pennie I used dish soap and soda ash, which worked very well....thanks Pennie! (While you're over at Pennie's check out her awesome give away!!)
Here's some clean fiber that I dyed:
I tease it just a little bit before feeding it through (someday I hope to get a picker to help with this!) I feed it through the carder twice which leaves me with a beautiful ready to spin batt!
And here you can see the fiber before carding and the batt fresh off the carder.
I chose the fine 90/120 carding cloth as Recommended by Ron, for my fine Corriedale wool.
Here's the Fancy Kitty in action.
And here's a finished batt coming off the drum.
I have a lot of work to do.....good thing I have a good helper!