Comb, Sweet Comb

While I am about 5 skeins into the knitting of the Urban Aran (got some quality time in on Saturday while participating in Knitting in Public Day), I am still working on making sure I have enough yarn spun up to finish the project.

Sure, the smart and cautious thing to do would be to spin up the whole lot before picking up the needles- but I was awfully anxious to get started once I figured out what I wanted to do.

So, this weekend I washed up another couple batches of white Romney, and today I went back to the combs for another round of fiber prep.

This is where I started-The Raw Wool:

Now, mind you, this is not a primo fleece. But then I didn’t pay all that much for it, either. I knew going in that I would have to do some work. But under all that veg and dirt, there is some quite nice, soft, crimpy wool.

First I washed. That brings us to this:

Lots whiter, but still quite a bit of crud. (More than you would want to try and flick out.) And some weak tips. But it’s got enough length that losing the tips wont be a big deal.

This wool is a perfect candidate for combing! Here we go-

First pass, left to right-

Second pass, top to bottom-

There is sometimes quite a bit of waste- but then, you don’t want to be spinning the crud anyway!

And finally, the diz ( you might notice that mine used to be a spork)

And we are left with a beautiful lofty strip of combed top-

Which I like to wind up into a tidy bun.

Wow. A miraculous transformation.

to

in more-than-a-few easy steps.