Saturday, March 31, 2012

Rest of the First Full Day

Judith is an amazingly bottomless well of knowledge. She is also a gifted teacher, the kind that you want to just follow around ALL the time to see what else she'll say. We were all mesmerized.

Learning about fiber

Hands on learning is the best and we all dived right into the fiber....literally! As you can see it was a nice and relaxed environment. No one worried about what they were wearing, if their hair looked okay or even if anything matched! It was ALL about the fiber and how to deal with it.

Locks from the fleece being combed


Look at those wicked, REALLY sharp teeth! You just lay the locks on there and comb it like the hair that it is. The stiff outer coat has been discarded and this is a layer under that. Some animals have more than two layers. When it's cold the hairs stand up and fluff out and that is what keeps them warm. We do that too but our hair doesn't insulate so well. We call that 'goosebumps'. 8^)

Spinning from the comb
Feeling the 'velvet'



Only the longest and strongest fibers come from the comb. The shorter fibers and  lumpier pieces (noils) stay in the comb.

Judith can spin right from the combs!



And then she made a tiny bit of velvet. Now I know how it was done before machines came along to help out the process. Wow!






Three examples of a diz
Drawing fiber through the diz


These little gadgets are a diz....I don't know the plural of the word. The combed fiber is pulled through the hole to form what is called 'top'.


 If you see any wool fiber called 'top' this is how it was processed.





Judith is a whiz with a diz! Sorry, I just could not pass that up!!







Here's a link to a video showing a diz in use: 







Group learning
We followed Judith over to the tables to see even more things to do! Who knew there is SO much to learn about fiber?!!








Then the drum carder




More about drum carders tomorrow!




















One of Judith's suitcases

More of Judith's stuff


This is what Judith's bags look like. She vacuums the air out and stuffs it all in. She said her greatest fear is that TSA will open the suitcase and then the bags will suck in air and they'll never be able to close them again!


Blessings,
gk

PS-The spacing got weird in this post. I'm sure it's something I did wrong but I'm too lazy to start over!

2 comments:

  1. happy Sunday! The hole in the diz is dishearteningly small....
    :-) TRC

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you got all the details down! Mmh

    ReplyDelete