Hand Spinning Wool Batts

​Fun With Batts!
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Wool batts that is! I've had a lot of handspinners over the years mention to me that they have never spun from a batt and are intimidated by them. So I thought I would do a little step-by-step for those of you who are interested but haven't taken the dive yet.

Step 1: Unroll/unfold your batt. Please note, not all batts are packaged the same, but I think the majority of batts you purchase will likely be rolled in some form for ease of packaging.

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​Step 2: Stripping Batts. I generally strip my batts as I go along so I don't have to hold a big old batt. This is simple! Just pull a chunk and "go with the grain" of the fiber as you pull. You can make this strip as thick or as thin as you want - and your strips do not all need to be the same thickness so do not worry too much as you strip. Depending on the density of the fiber you may want to pre-draft the strip a little for ease of spinning. Totally up to you!

Step 3: Deciding how to spin - shorter or long color changes. Now you have options!
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Spinning for long color changes. You could choose to spin directly across the batt and follow the colors as they change. The will give you 3 very long stretches of the colors in your yarn,  For this batt you would go light green to olive green to the wine color (or you could of course start on the wine side). Spinning this batt in this style would give you long runs of each color.
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​Spinning for shorter color changes. Another option is to split the colors up and spin them back and forth - small strip of light green, then olive green, then wine and back to light green and so on. Spinning in this way will cause more frequent color changes throughout your yarn.

​If you choose this route, you will want to split the batt into the three different colors and then pull strips from each as you go.  You can come up with any combination you'd like! This is your yarn!

Again, depending on the density of the fiber you may want to pre-draft the strips a little for ease of spinning.
That is two fun ways to spin this batt. And of course there are different ways you could ply that would allow for all different types of color patterns in your finished yarn. 

I hope this helped a few of you feel a new inspiration towards spinning batts! If you are looking for some lovely batts to spin be sure to check out my online shop for hand spinning fun. ewethfulfiberfarm.com​

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