New Felting Supplies

After finally finishing my inventory the other week, I made a list of all the colours and breeds of wool I was low on and ordered some new supplies from World of Wool. As usual, I added a few things to my order which weren't on the list, but the more you order each time, the more you save on postage, right? :)  I ordered a few natural white wool tops which I haven't tried before, left to right: Whiteface Woodland, Dorset Horn and German Eider.

I've had a dark Brown Corriedale and a few different types of Jacob before, so I added some (Top to Bottom) Grey Corriedale, Grey Jacob and because I couldn't resist, brown baby Alpaca Tops.

I also bought a few things I thought a lot of people might be interested in. I've seen Broken Merino Tops listed before, and thought they were probably what they sounded like, and they are. They look like what I'd imagine is left at the bottom of the bags or boxes when the nice part of the top has been sold: short pieces a few inches long, a bit crumpled and a bit messed up and separated. But not felted or matted at all. I ran some through my drum carder then used it in some blends for felted soap.

There were a couple of wool noils listed, which I've never seen before. There was Bluefaced Leicester Noil, and Black Finnish Noil. They both looked like they are probably what is left over after the wool has been carded into tops. Because they are both quite fine soft wools, even these noils feel soft, although there is a bit of vegetable matter in there too. This is the Bluefaced Leicester one:

And this is the Black Finnish noil:

I thought they'd be good for some extra texture and perfect for using in natural wool texture felt, so the better quality/more expensive wool isn't wasted. I think these were both around £1 for 100g. And since I was going a bit mad with the order, I thought I'd get some Merino Burrs. They looked softer than nepps which I never have much luck with, and they do feel a lot softer, and flatter and not as tight/hard as nepps.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to try these out soon. I've added these to the Wool and Animal Fibres Gallery on The Felting and Fiber Studio, along with a few other new photos. If you have any photos of wool, fleece, animal fibres you'd like to submit to the gallery, please contact us there :)