"Wool Picker and Drum Carding........"

Mocha, whose fleece I will be processing in the following photos. This photo was taken at our friend Jacqui's' Dumgoyne Farm on shearing day. Mocha is waiting his turn to be sheared.


This is my"set up" for processing fleece. As you can see from the bag in the photo, it is a good sized fleece (Mocha is a BIG boy!) as the bag is full.


The new wool picker with washed fleece ready to be processed. There is an "In" side and an "Out" side. ;)


The fleece coming out after being processed through the wool picker once. I found I liked to process it 2 or 3 times, making sure it was well "picked". I may change my mind about how many times I should process fleece after gaining more experience.


Transferring fleece to the drum carder and carding it.


Re-carding a batt that had been carded once. After tearing it into strips, each strip is then fed separately into the drum carder to be re-carded. I found that I liked carding the lambs wool 3 times.


3 finished batts of Mocha's lambs wool. They are very thick, but extremely light and airy, too. Picking and carding does remove some of the vegetable matter (VM) that is found in the fleece. You can see some in the batts. Every fleece will have some VM in it, but with processing, most comes out. I will have more fall out when I tear the batts into a continuous zig zag roving, and when spinning, the rest, if any, can easily be picked out.