I’ve had the drumcarder whirling pretty consistently over the past few days. I’m churning through a fleece quite quickly, alternately carding up batches and spinning them. I would card them all at once and them switch completely over to spinning-only for a few days, but experience has taught me two important lessons about this work.

Firstly, varying your physical motions a fair amount is better for your body. Repetitive-motion injuries are avoidable at the cost of a small amount of efficiency. You may lose a little time by switching activities, but you’ll gain it back by not acquiring a flaming case of tendonitis in your shoulder.

Secondly, cats are very inconvenient. They like nice, soft, piles of fleece, especially large carded batts of the stuff.

They also will curl up on ANYTHING.

Even I was surprised when he decided that the intake tray of the carder was a Good Place to Be. He actually managed to curl himself right up on the tray and was leaning against the spikes and beaming beatifically, as only a cat can. I wasn’t quite quick enough off the mark with the camera to get the best shot.

In any event, I can’t just card up stacks of batts and leaving them lying around, because Tasha does his Princess and the Pea imitation and climbs right on tops, shuffles around and sleeps there. Did you know that a cat can actually felt wool by sleeping on it for a week straight? True story.

So I have to card and spin up what I’ve made as quickly as possible. Or roll it up and bag it.

The whole sleeping on the drumcarder thing has to change soon, though.

My electric one will arrive any day and the potential for serious injury with that one is much greater.

Needless to say, its default setting will be “unplugged”.