New Zealand Soft Gold on their manufacturing site at Onehunga are proud to offer the services for carding your fleece. This is what is available as part of this service:
– We can undertake fibre for commissioning New Zealand wide – We have the ability to card an extensive list of natural fibers including Alpaca, possum, wool and Mohair (to name a few). Please feel free to contact us regarding your fiber
Preparation Guidelines for Carding
In order to obtain premium results for your fleece, it is important to prepare your fleece following the correct guidelines before sending it for carding. As part of this preparation, you will need to ‘skirt’ your fleece first. The process of skirting is to simply remove all faults from your natural fiber that does not match the bulk of your fleece.
Instructions for skirting:
– On a flat surface lay, all your fleece stretched out for clear visibility
– Start by removing all clays, neck wool and any top knots
– Remove any short greasy pieces. It is important to also remove all belly wool as it has a tendency to be stained and dirty
– Undertake to remove as much of the vegetable matter as possible as no amount of carding has the capability to remove this. Any vegetable residue may spread through the fleece during the carding process
It is important to note the more well prepared or skirted your fleece is, the higher the quality of your fleece will be.