Carding on the Carding Machine

It's time to card the scoured Karakul-Coopworth fleece! I have a Strauch carding machine. It is a high quality machine, and I decided that if I were going to purchase one, I would get the best, and I have not been sorry. This carder works like a dream, and is very well constructed.

I apply slight pressure to the wool as it is fed into the machine (you can see the hand crank in the bottom right corner, as well as in the photo above), just to guide it, and assist in separating the fibers a bit as they feed onto the drum. Be careful not to let too much on at once--it is a good idea to pick the clumps of wool apart a bit before placing them onto the metal tray at the front. The carder came with a fleece teasing tool, as well, to asist with this job.This model has a brush attachment at the top--be sure the brush is in contact with the large drum. This keeps the fibers against the drum while carding. See the photo below.

The wool is distributing onto the drum here. This fleece is not a particularly clean one, there are many bits of chaff  and grass in it. Although I tried to remove some of it during preparation for scouring, there is still some left. I will have to pick it out as I spin. When shopping for fleece, you have to weigh the price against the features of the fleece! I loved the color, and the price was right. The wool is so soft, I was willing to overlook the bits of chaff......!

Time to remove or "doff" the carded batt. Using a "batt picker", I lift and pull the batt up at the space on the drum where there are no carding teeth. Slide the hooked end of the picker under the fibers at the end, lift, and pull slowly. The fibers will release. Continue across the channel in this way, untill you have finished, and the fibers are free of the teeth in this area.

I generally run the batt through the carder 3 times. After the first carding, split the batt in two, as shown here, on the left. Then, card each strip again. You can decide how much of the batt to recharge onto the carder. If the batt seems too thick, don't add all of the wool back on. Once you get the feel for how the batts look as they come off the carder, you can adjust the amounts you are feeding in. If there is too much wool, it becomes lumpy, and the feeder drum (the smaller of the two drums) cannot do its job. The photo on the right above shows the removal of the finished batt. Grasp the ends of the fibers (two hands are better! I used one hand, so I could take a photo with the other....), and slowly pull the batt off the drum. The drum will rotate as you pull. Loosen any stray ends from the drum as you pull. You can also use a cloth or an old placemat or piece of heavy construction paper to roll the batt onto, as you remove it. This ensures that all of the stray fibers get caught into the matt as you roll off the batt. Then, simply unroll the matt to reveal the batt. You can then re-roll the batt as shown below.

These batts are ready for spinning! Can't wait to get started! I have to hide these from our kitty, Mason. He LOVES the natural, outdoorsy smell (you can imagine!), and quickly shreds them when he finds them. I keep everything fiber-y covered and out of his reach. He likes to get ahold of my yarn balls and literally entwines my entire house with a yarn trail, both upstairs and down. Serious business! And it takes the better part of the morning to untangle and remove his yarn artwork from my stairs, furniture and equipment!

How to Wash a Shorn Fleece for Spinning

Today was a perfect day to wash fleece. Dry and sunny, but not too hot to be outside. I selected a lamb's wool Coopworth Karakul cross fleece I had purchased at the Connecticut Sheep Breeder's Association Fiber Festival last April. It is a rich, dark brown color, and not too big--about 3.5 lbs. The fleece was laid out in the grass in a sunny location. Most fleeces are rolled up so that when you unroll them, you can pretty much lay it out in "order", or relatively intact and see where the neck end and the rump end are. This fleece was pretty well skirted (dirty edges removed), so my next job was to sort the fleece. Since my goal is to card this fleece on the carding machine into batts for spinning, my dec ision for sorting was to simply sort into 2 categories, based on fineness. I put the rump end into one pile, since the fibers are coarser, and the rest of the fleece went into another pile. All of this fleece would be carded together in the batts, and spun woolen style. If I wanted to, I could have sorted the prime longest wool into a separate pile, to be combed out using my English wool combs, and spun Worsted style, but my end use will be all-purpose woolen spun yarn for hats, mittens and such, so minimal sorting is enough.

After sorting, I filled a large galvanized wash tub with warm water, and about a half-cup of "Orvus" WA Paste, available at farm supply retailers. This is used in the industry to wash sheep and other livestock to prep them for showing. It is pH balanced. Great for all your wool handwashables, too! Gentle and effective. Let the fleece soak for an hour or so, being careful not to agitate it, as it can felt. Drain off the water, and fill the tub again, being careful not to shock the wool with extreme temperature changes to the water. When the water runs clear, drain it off. You may put the wool into the washer on the spin cycle only to extract the rest of the water, or gently squeeze out as much as you can by hand.

Next, I put the fleece on a drying rack outdoors to drip dry. This may take the entire day or more, depending on how much water is left in the wool. I have also used large screens to dry wool on, which work well, too. After spinning the yarn, I will wash the wool again to remove any remaining grease and suint (sweat). The carding machine will remove any bits of chaff. I was careful to shake out as much of the chaff and second cuts as I could before putting the wool into the water. The second cuts are easy to see, they are the little shorter bits of wool left when the shearer clips over an area a second time. You do not want these bits in your spinning!

Bow Loom Experiments

Her is my first attempt at a bow loom. I used the article in the May/June 2011 issue of Handwoven magazine. The directions are very clear, and it was easy to follow them. I think my third grade students could handle this type of weaving, perhaps with larger yarn and pony beads? I used 8/2 cotton for the warp and weft, only because that is all I had. The article in Handwoven specified 3/2 or 5/2 cotton. I added 2 extra warp threads to make up the difference in width.  What a fun project! Thanks to Marilyn Romatka, who wrote the article.

Luna would be so proud! She is one of our Nigerian Dwarf goats.

First Official Blog Posting!

Greetings! I am a new blogger, as of today. The goats are eating dinner, my table loom has been dragged out of the attic, and I am wondering where my son stored the old Crock-Pot cooker I gave him when he went away to college (somewhere in the attic, I suspect), so I can use it as my dedicated fiber-dyeing pot. I have been preoccupied with dyeing recently, and have ordered several DVD's on the topic, a "Professional Development" opportunity awaits for this summer! As an artist, I find the summers are my time to catch up on my field of interest, hopefully finding new ways to bring textiles into the classroom. My students LOVE weaving, and I am fortunate to have a floor loom available in my classroom for them to use. The most recent issue of Handwoven magazine had an article on bow looms which I would like to experiment with. I will post photos of our (very) mini-farm and animals soon. My herb garden needs watering, the goats are asking for more hay, and the dinner dishes need to be put away.......more tomorrow!