Friday, August 8, 2008

Carding

This is my Louet Roving carder, on which my husband has added a motor. This week I am making camel blends! I was given a feed sack full of camel hair; the gentleman that gave me the camel brushes his girls and didn't want to throw the fiber away. I am not removing the guard hairs because they really don't effect the blend. As the blend only has about 15% camel they don't seem to effect the softness of the yarn.
This is a picture of the fibers I am using this week. The white is superwash merino, the dark brown is merino, the off white is soy silk and the red brown is the camel.
A quick pic of me carding outside. I love cool days with no wind, very rare for August.

After all the fibers are put onto the carder, I take them off and run them though again so they are more blended and make a more consistent yarn.
After the second carding I remove the fibers by rolling them into an egg. By rolling them they take up less space during storage, and they look cuter.
Egg Plant!
I wish I could just plant seeds and roving would grow :)
This is what the final egg (batt) looks like.
Now I pull the fibers out into roving, which takes about 10 min. per egg.
18 grams doesn't sound like a lot of fiber, but it sure looks like a lot!
After spinning this is what the final yarn looks like.
I would just like to thank the camels who provided the fiber, and the pumpkin who played the Egg Plant.
This weekend we will be pouring more spindles to turn next week, and maybe dyeing some fibers.