* Oh! I forgot to include the footnote in the initial post. 🤪 Technically I've blended white wool and Siberian Husky fur while learning to use a drum carder the first time, but I'm not terribly happy with that result, so it doesn't count!

Next time I rent the drum carder, I'll bring it with me and see if a few more passes help.

First test spin of the Tibetan Mastiff / merino blend!

It went OK. No worries about the yarn falling apart (I'm always comparing my spinning to the short, slick husky fur that I first learned on!) but as I feared, it's not as smooth as I'd hoped. Even though the merino top blended nicely with the fur, it often came out in little clumps that were difficult to tease apart (which I mostly left in). I suspect that the long fur fibers tend to draft out more/faster, and with the coiled rolag format, the shorter, stickier wool bunches up on itself more before getting pulled out.

I started with a worsted-style short draw, but experimented with long draw. The long draw would tease me with success initially, but then start to clump up in the fiber-managing hand again. I suspect the long draw gets more long fur out of the rolag, leaving some of the wool to build up in the hand.

The yarn is also much thinner than I was hoping for: it was hard to get an even width (without chunks) in a thicker single. The woolen long draw did seem to work for a slightly thicker strand, for as long as the technique was working, which is a frustrating tease!