You really can brush ‘paint’ with fibre. This weekend I set up the blending board to help my little people get exposure to actual fibre and what you can do with it.  Lucy is only two so I thought a paintbrush would work well and it did!  You can pick up various colours of roving and lay them directly on the board, then ‘paint’ them in. It’s a very visual way to do carding and blending and easier in some ways than the hand carders although I do like them very much too. 

I rolled up the blended colours into a rolag,  spun it up and Lucy wove it into a small piece on the Piccolo loom. A fun way to take the colours all the way to cloth.

This particular board is from Ashford and I’m planning to visit them in NZ next month so hoping it is all I’ve dreamed of.  I can’t see myself buying anything there but then I have said that type of thing before. They are quite the extraordinary company and their spinning wheels really are everywhere. Many moons ago I thought I had an opportunity to write for them and spent an excruciating hot summer doing too many samples with little children underfoot… but unfortunately it fell through. My too forward and pre-emptive planning has always got me into trouble!