It’s been a few days since I drove down to pick this little feller up, but I’m still excited. Allow me to introduce my drum carder!
Of course, I can’t properly introduce him until he’s cleaned up and actually presentable. At the moment he’s in need of some tender loving care. But, I’ve ordered a new drive band for him, and my dad says he will help me get the rust off the handle, and after that, it’s just a matter of dusting and getting any last little wisps of wool out of the teeth.
In case you’re wondering, I got him for free. (Thank you, Heavenly Father!) It’s been several months in “coming” (I contacted the owner last summer), but the timing was great. Hooray hurrah!
Well, my time with the drum carder ended yesterday, but not before I had carded somewhere in the vicinity of thirty-four batts. Not a bad amount, considering I had the carder for a week.
After the wooly mammoth hide experience (see last post) I did some online tutorial hunting in the hopes of coming up with a way to make less blended, but still great batts.
I came across a very helpful series of video how-tos, although I’m loath to post the links to them, as they’re rather hyper and there is a bit of language. Suffice it to say, I went back to the craftroom revved up and ready to go with my fist full of very helpful notes.
Here is the result. My lovely Rose Garden batt.
I found the success very inspiring. Especially because I could sing the song from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. “Up from the ashes, grow the roses of success. . . ”
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Alright, everyone. Look out for a really excited spinner. While a good friend is traveling about the country, she volunteered to let me babysit this little beauty for her, and, um, sort of make sure it doesn’t forget how to run.
And I’m making sure! By the end of the first day (Sunday) I had thirteen batts in my possession. And I’ve got lots more fiber to take care of.
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Beginner’s Series: Wool – Part 3
After you have washed your fleece and it’s all squeaky clean, you need to get it ready to be spun into yarn. There are options for doing this, but thankfully not too many options. It’s pretty easy to decide.
From The Lock
First option is to spin it from the lock. If you look at your fleece you’ll see that the hairs are sort of clumped together into standard-sized sections. These are called locks. If you’re gentle, you can pull one of them apart from all the others.
Fluff up the “tip” end, which is the part that faced away from the sheep. Usually it’s all stuck together. All right. Now you have a little, very short, roving. Very very short. This method is really only recommended for sheep with a looooong staple length. Like a four inch minimum.
If you want to go this route, but you’re having trouble fluffing up those ends, you can get what’s called a “Flick Carder.” It’s the little one in the lower part of the picture. Here is a great demo on using it.
But be warned. For any spinner, this sort of video is rather like grocery shopping when you’re hungry.
Hand Cards a.k.a. Hand Carders
Second option, moving in the direction of cheapest to most expensive, are hand carders.
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During the first week of August I was granted the privilege of having a very good spinning friend come to visit, and she brought her drum carder.
Behold the fruits of our labor.
And, not only did she bring the drum carder, but she brought some more Aussie fur, some llama, and some cotton for me! I was in fiber heaven with a marvelous friend to play with. (Thanks, Legossi!) Here are the cotton batts (the white) and some batts of from the Iowa fleece. They’re nice and fluffy!
The cotton batts were rather fun. Legossi brought lots of cotton from the inside of pill bottles. Some of it carded up really well, and some of it did a really weird sort of disintegrating lump thing. All in all I wound up with five or six of them. I’m eager to see how they spin up.
We did attempt a test to see if running the fibers in tip first, cut end first, or sideways made any difference. (In other words, after hearing that there were so many opinions I was dying of curiosity.) We found that, with this particular drumcarder, cut end first worked best. There didn’t seem to be much difference between tip or cut end first on the carding level. I don’t know how it would look on the spinning level. And we tried sideways and got a big mess.
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Believe it or not, I haven’t fallen into a fiber-induced coma and vanished off the face of the earth. I’m still here trying to make time for spinning and fiber in a rapidly filling schedule. (While juggling a change of work, vacation plans, writing, and getting ready for a friend to come visit.)
Every single scrap of Iowa fleece I have left (except for one chunk that had lots of VM) has been pre-soaked twice. All of it. Excuse me while I go collapse.
I spent I don’t know how long outside in the backyard hauling pots of water, wrestling fleece, spinning out the excess water, and shooing away any curious insects. It wiped me out. I have this feeling that the neighbors think I’m some sort of odd person — constantly lugging pots out there, whirling around spraying water in every direction — yeah. Well, if they want some wool they can have it. I just want to get it all washed by the second of August.
Why the reason for this sudden haste? A certain special friend is coming to visit next month, and she’s bringing a toy with her. Something very beneficial for those who have lots of fiber to process. Any guesses?
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