I pulled some scoured mohair from my stash that I prepped a few years ago. This is hair from Rutabaga, an Angora goat, and came from her first shearing. My intention is to spin it up for another fiber log page.

The fibers condensed some in storage, and at the time I didn’t have carders, so had used a cat brush to align the fibers. I tried spinning from the sections straight from the bag, but the pull was uneven and my yarn inconsistent. So I carded some with hand carders, which made spinning easier but I lost some of the shine. I don’t have wool combs, but found some undercoat rakes designed for dogs. I am able to comb small amounts of fiber inefficiently, but I can comb them, which makes the fibers parallel and removes the noils and shorter fibers. The combed sections are much easier to spin and have more shine when spun.

The next step is to obtain actual wool combs, which have longer tines to process more fiber. Properly made wool combs are an investment. Yes, there are DIY versions out there using finish nails, but those nails aren’t mirror finished or very long. As I think about how I would construct combs, hardening and mirror finishing the metal tines seems the most intensive part. Then setting the tine into a comfortable handle in such a way that they don’t work loose under the work load is the next challenge. I am thinking that the combs, although expensive, are not unreasonably so.