Blending fibers is an enjoyable process for me, and there's nothing I like better than color blending. I had a large Cormo fleece which I dyed raspberry and elderberry and then picked and teased to get ready for blending. I wanted a heathered yarn and decided to do a 50/50 blend of these two rich colors. You can use any ratio you want, and it is fun to play with ratios to see different affects. I weighed out .4 ounces of each since I've found .8 ounces of fiber is a good amount to card on my particular carder.
For this project, I did a second pass through the carder, just enough carding to give a nice batt, but not blend the colors too much. I wanted to be able to still see bits of the original color as I spun the fiber. The more times through the carder, the more blended it is. Below, I set one of my twice through batts (left) next to a three times through batt. The color is much more blended in the one on the right, and the resulting yarn would be more uniform in terms of color. I wouldn't get the splotches of color I want in the yarn.
If you want to spin a yarn with the effect found from one pass through, you may want to card each color separately once before blending them to get a nicer batt. I should also note that I have a handheld tool I run over the large drum while carding that acts as a second drum, giving more nicely carded batt with only two passes then I would otherwise get. I bought this tool on the recommendation of Susan at Susan's Fiber Shop in Wisconsin, from whom I purchased my Patrick Greene Deb's Delicate Deluxe. She is very knowledgeable about carding and combing.
So that is a short course on creating a heathered yarn! Happy spinning!
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