Preparing a felting batt....now this is fun!

Main ingredient beautiful merino x fleece

bought at Woolfest this year.

The same merino scoured (cleaned and degreased)

 and dyed, I use acid dyes which are rinsed in metipex

to remove excess dye and then rinsed in conditioner.

My carding space in the studio.

I use an Ashford wild carder 

( I bought mine from Wingham Wool works)

You can of course use hand carders .

I card the merino x once to produce a rough batt.

( It can be seen to left of carder)

Then I chose my additions

This one has dyed tussah silk tops, bamboo,

silk noil and felt snipps.

Felt snips are pieces of my hand dyed merino pre-felt

that I sort into colour collections and snip into little bits.

I combine the additions in layers between 

my hand dyed Merino.

So the second carding look like the above.

Apologies for photo my camera doesn't like being inside.

Then I split it into sections and card it for the third time.

I like to keep it to 3 times so it retains as much texture as possible.

Similar felting bats can be made using my felting packs