Wool (Speed) Bump
Thoughts on wool, and the management of wool top
Long time no writing. Much to my chagrin, a bit of planning got out of sorts over the last few weeks. I received my first wholesale order, worked my butt off, applied to multiple markets, grant applications, drafted two-ish articles, and visited my family for thanksgiving (twice). Busy times. Good times. One of my adventures was wrangling a bump of wool.
A bump of wool is a 10 kilogram bundle.
They arrive so tightly bound that one could assume an entire sheep was dropped off on one’s stoop. “Baaa!” it would say, a head emerging from one end and expecting food. Thankfully, a bump merely has the shape of a sheep that we all imagine. Fluffy and round and oblong and coloured an ever so slightly warm off-white. I placed this tightly bound bundle of wool in my dining room, where I tried to figure out how to handle this impending explosion of fluffy corriedale goodness.
I decided to tie it up.
The bump arrived with all of the wool top neatly coiled onto itself. In the video above the cylinder of coils is on its side. In my mind, if it arrived tied up, then it should remain tied up. Replacing the straps with a slightly looser binding should allow me to remove wool while keeping the bump in an orderly state. That said, the closest material on hand is… twine. Is this pokey, textured sisal twine that I use for my cat tree (Nummite loves it) is all that I have? Usually I have a ball of acrylic on hand that I use for these less than ideal jobs, but I cannot find it.
Twine it is.
After binding the (speed) bump up I began to remove wool top for my production work. It was difficult at first. The twine continuously grabbed and held wool fibres, making some of the top messy. Fortunately after the first kilogram it was easier, and that wool top looks much nicer. It all poofed out marvellously once freed from the bump’s restraints. There is no sign of felting from travel. It was upon observing the volume of the released wool top that I understood how prudent I had been to use restraints. The volume of one kilogram was on par with the rest of the bump!
(Nummite was sleeping in a chair out of frame for this entire endeavour)
Despite my efforts, the bump — perhaps I should just nickname it “Speed” — continued to attempt to escape his twine based bonds. The cylinder of wool was bending in an attempt to slip out of the rope. No amount of pounding it back into position would prevent this escape! My only recourse is to contain this fluffy form in my bucket, latch the lid closed and hope for the best.
In the future, I need a tall box set up that I can place the bump into. The cylinder of wool should be upright so that I can easily remove the wool as I need it. The tricky part is estimating how tall the bod will need to be to accommodate the expansion of a bump released from its bonds.
What am I doing with two kilograms of wool?
I have a few colourways planned for the wool top that I removed
Autumnal vI
Nocturnal
Purple Magic
Autumnal vII
Crepuscular
Green (an unimaginative name, I know)
The first three colourways are going to be made into mini felted hat DIY kits, and the others are going to be sold as 100 gram braids. The plan is to have these and the (almost) black cat DIY needle felting kits ready for this Friday’s “Only in OEV Friday” event on October 20th. It is held at the Palace Theatre, and I am looking forward to it.
Here is a pro tip for any folks who need to wet out a kilogram of wool.
You’ll need:
One really big bucket (enough to hold the wool), a long tube, a medium bucket (1.5-2L), and one smaller bucket.
Place the wool into the large bucket or tote.
Place the small bucket on its side within the tote.
Place the medium bucket in your sink, and fill it with water.
Syphon water into the tube.
Place on end in the bottom of the medium bucket, and the other into the small bucket inside of the tote.
Allow the syphon to feed water into the small bucket.
Turn on the tap and continue to fill the medium bucket as it is drained, until the large bucket is full. Ensure that there are no whorls of water or eddies that are slapping against the wool. If necessary, move the small bucket on occasion so that it does not become submersed in the water. It should float on the surface.
See you later!