The Sandwich Part of My Batts

In my latest Knittyspin column I talk about the difference between heathered and tweed batts. As usual, I got comments and questions (thank you, I love that) not about heather vs tweed, but about my mention of making a sandwich with my fiber and nubbies in my tweed batt.

It’s exactly how it sounds, I split my batt fiber in two, put down one half, add the nubbies, put the second half on top and send it through the carder.

Here’s a visual:

My fiber is yellow Corriedale from Dashing Mouse and my add-ins are  silk waste from my stash. My carder is the Strauch Finest Motorized. The silk waste will make a tweed that is streaky rather than the pin point  style of tweed that the nubbies make.

I was feeling yellow today

My sandwich, a little fiber on the bottom, a scattering of tweedy bits, a little fiber on the top.

A pretty, but not appetizing, sandwich.

The result is tweedy batt and no silk waste or nubbies left in the carder.

Streaky tweed and no silk in the carder

I’ll admit that having no add-ins stuck in the carder after I was done is the main reason that I use the sandwiching method. After doing it for many batts, I think mixes and locks-in the tweedy bits better. I find that I get less literal fall out when I spin from batts that I’ve prepared using this method. Plus it’s kinda fun! I use this method with my handcards too.

 

 

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