icelandic fleece and buffalo down

these are the first tools i used to prep the icelandic and buffalo. the handcarders are on top and the flicker tool is below the carders.the icelandic locks are flicked open to ease carding on the drum carder. the buffalo down is quite matted from the cleaning process so i used the hand carders to ready it for the drum carder. the buffalo down was collected from fences, bushes and the ground so was very dirty. during the many washes and rinses it became matted.

below are the prepped fibres. the first being the icelandic fleece and the second being the buffalo down. the colour is deceiving as both are more brown than depicted.

the prepped fibres are then fed into the drum carder to align the individual fibres. i started with the icelandic and created a batt. see below. i split the batt lengthwise and sandwiched the buffalo down between the icelandic. i then fed the sandwich into the carder in order to blend the fibres. i sandwiched them as the buffalo down has a short staple length and would likely end up on the smaller lickerin drum.the blended batt is seen below ready for spinning.

there are about 6 batts spun up on the bobbin. i might ply the icelandic buffalo blend with the black alpaca and aldo doghair polworth wool blend shown below. if i can spin up enough of this yarn i would like to make a gansey with this blend as it would be naturally warm from the dog and buffalo and water resistant from the icelandic. however once damp you would smell like a blend of dog, buffalo and sheep.