Second Day Spinning

So, yesterday I left off with the drum carder photo. There are hand carders and drum carders and of course there are variations of each. Carding is just another way to prepare fiber for spinning. There is a whole vocabulary associated with carding. Someday I may master this language but no matter, I can still play with fiber whether I speak the language or not! I can tell you that when you roll the fiber off hand carders (and I'm assuming a drum carder) into a long roll it is called a 'rolag'. Taking fiber off the carder is called 'doffing' and the tool, which looks like a fat ice pick, is called a doffer. A knitting needle works quite well too. A large fluffy length of carded fiber can also be called a 'batt' as in batting which is also a quilting term. Enough of that! On to some photos....

Remember hand combs...

...and compare to hand carder...

...and drum carder teeth.

Of course, Judith can spin tiny singles right from the comb!

I tried hand carding later.

FYI-a single is one strand of spun fiber.














I'm not holding the carders correctly as I learned later but I did end up with some spinnable fiber! I felt SO accomplished...my first hand carding!!









More fleece appeared, this time East Friesian ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Friesian_%28sheep%29 ) and then Cheviot ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheviot_sheep ). Judith showed us how to spin from those locks and to make a bouclé yarn ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boucl%C3%A9 ). My attempt was abysmal but this lady did a great job!

Look at that yarn!

This spinner did really well too!

After lunch ANOTHER fleece appeared! This time it was California Variegated Mutant (CVM) seriously! Here's a link to this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeldale/CVM   This time we learned to separate locks according to staple length and to place them into fabric 'envelopes' for washing. CVM is pretty neat stuff as it has multiple colors throughout the fleece so you can sort to colors within staple lengths as well. Wow!

CVM locks

CVM prepared for washing

After dinner and we are still at it.....

And fiber is appearing everywhere!

This lady just had to put her feet up.

Could NOT resist the photo op of fiber hanging off my neighbor's butt. 8^)



It was hard enough doing all this work as it was but the lady below was pregnant AND one of our vendors. She needed to put her feet up!





My brain was ready to explode by the time I went off to bed!! Whew!








Blessings,
gk