This is an unusual blend: 70% mohair, 20% Corriedale; and 10% alpaca, both light toast color and a very dark brown. With the Amazing pearly shine of the mohair, it’s more spectacular in person than on the page. I can’t wait to put more of together for a pair of mittens and a scarf to match!
This batt is far more mixed in its color. 70% mohair, 25% Corriedale, and 5% black alpaca. The alpaca was introduced several fibers at a time as the drum carder turned slowly. There was some in each layer, but very limited amounts in any one point. Thus the difference with the above picture!
There will be more examples over the next months that I look forward to sharing with you!
Blended Fiber Batts
One of my other fiber fun hobbies is quilting. As all quilters will tell you, we are NOT hoarding fabric. We’re curating a collection!
And for those of of us who are also knitters or crocheters (or weavers….don’t want to leave you out!) we love looking for new ombres, new fiber offerings, even new needles made from different colored woods! Curators, right? But when I got to reading about processing fibers, I found out just HOW those commercial fibers we got excited about are done….and that we can do it ourselves! Whether you blend using a blender board, a mixing of colors by using different colors in a 2 ply yarn, or some more experimental ideas I’ve tried and seen, nevertheless, suddenly yarn becomes as much a made-to-order thing as a hamburger (with a lot more work involved!)
As a mohair fan (and seller), I realized that if I was going to be selling blended batts, I’d better learn what works and what doesn’t. The first great advice I got was to start by blending mohair and corriedale wool by alternating them in the batt as I made it.. I tried different percentages, and found that a 70% mohair, 30% corriedale kept most of the softness of the mohair while allowing me to play with adding tiny amounts of alpaca neck fiber I’d been given by a friend. As neither mohair nor alpaca have the “hooks” of wool fiber, getting some of that alpaca in with the other fibers could be done, as long as I didn’t overdo it. Too much and it just fell through the drum carder and was wasted. Done carefully, it can give a very subtle effect, as some light brown alpaca lightly spread through showed me, and a lot more of a black fiber gave a quite dramatic effect. Note: this was done with neck fiber, which was gifted me by a friend. Longer body fibers would produce a different effect, and one I look forward to experiment with soon.
Other fibers can be used, of course. Cashmere, angora, and of course a variety of sheep wool can be used. Silk is expensive, but I bought some recently to experiment with and am looking forward to it. Plant-based fibers include the obvious cotton and flax, but also some more exotic, like bamboo and other forms of viscose. Viscose is not a plant, but it is a process by which fibrous plants can be chemically altered into something weave-ready. I’ve never knitted or crocheted with it, so can’t comment on how it feels to work with. But it’s not great for the environment, as opposed to natural . But it’s a chemical process, with by products not great for the environment, particularly in comparison with sheep and goats! Over time, you’ll see the results of my experiments with different natural fibers, but nothing else.
So here are my experiments with alpaca interspersed in the 70% mohair/30% corriedale: