Midnight Blush roving rose to yarn

I purchased this "roving rose" at the Jay County Spin-in in 2014. There was an ounce of white, an ounce of navy, an ounce of pink, and an ounce of blended colors, in llama, alpaca, and wool. I grabbed it to take with me to the February meeting of the local spinning guild and spun up the already-blended bit.

I tried to blend the solid colors on-the-fly at the meeting, but that was a FAIL. So later that week, I experimented with blending the three colors at home, using all the tools at my disposal.

A blending board is absolutely perfect for blending roving. You just "paint" the board with the fibers, layering colors as you wish.

The result is a fat sausage of a rolag. If the colors seem too separate, you can re-blend them, until they meet with your approval.

I didn't take notes, but I think I re-blended these rolags at least once, if not twice.

Or not.

I also tried blending on my new drum carder. This worked fine, although it would take some experimenting to get the combination you want.

The resulting batt can be run through again (and again) but from this pic, I think I opted out.

Hand carders may also be used to blend fiber, sort of like a mini-blending board.

I'm not very adept at using the hand carders.

Of these three methods, I like the blending board best. The rolags are fat and tight, and I think you have better control of the outcome.

More fun: spinning the blended fiber! The different methods produced different yarn, depending on how the colors mixed and fed into the wheel.

So now there are four ounces of llama-alpaca-wool, enough for a nice cozy pair of mittens, methinks. I have plenty of hats and scarves but not enough handwear.

But first, I'll take the yarn to the spinning guild for "show and tell".

Haste makes wasted time

Today I decided to re-scour the two-pound hunks of fleece, as they just did not look very clean. I was aware of my impatience at the time, otherwise I might have picked at the fleece more before scouring and/or stuck with processing one pound at a time and/or soaked the two-pound hunks one or two more times in Power Scour. Today, while I was more patient, I also treated the fleece a bit more roughly, trying to dislodge more of the dirt. Fingers crossed that the fiber did not felt at all.

There was a one-pound batch that I pre-treated by teasing the locks apart before scouring. That bit looked pretty good, so I put some of it through the drum carder. I quickly learned not to feed too much in at a time. Also, expecting to process even one ounce at a go is a bit optimistic, as my drum carder is only 4 inches wide.

The color above is not accurate - the fiber is white. There are also pills or nepps in the fiber, presumably because I did not sort out the second cuts (shorter fibers caused by the shearer making a second pass over a part of the sheep).

Earlier this week, I also hand carded some of the fiber, just for fun. Some people think hand carding is faster than drum carding, and I can see why, but each has its place in the process. I also have a blending board, but I think that works better with fiber that is already carded.

There is more, much more, to do before I am done with this fleece. And by "done", I mean carded and ready to spin. It's a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it. So far.

Tools new and used

I stopped by the Little Shop of Spinning to try out a couple of portable spinning wheels (more on that later). Since I was there, I purchased an Ashford lazy Kate. The shoe box solution was fine in an emergency but there was no easy way to add tension to the bobbins. Also, I am attending Ply Away in March and need a lazy Kate for 3-plying in one of my classes.

The tension system on this model is just like the Scotch tension on my spinning wheel, so no learning curve there. A little bit of tension keeps the bobbins from over spinning and tangling the yarn. I think this new tool will do nicely.

The lazy Kate was brand new, still in the box. Not so the mini-standard Clemes & Clemes drum carder that just happened to be for sale in the shop. Betty had posted it on FB earlier, but so far no takers. That meant is was for me.

We ran a little Romney fiber through it to make sure it worked okay and for me to learn some tips on how to get the best results from this device. Betty threw in a doffer, a tool for removing the batt from the drum.

Betty recommended removing the belt when not in use, BUT FIRST take a photo of the belt configuration. This sounded like excellent advice, one learned from experience. Since this item is pre-owned, there was no documentation with it.

I have used drum carders in several workshops, but didn't feel the need to spend $500-$650 for one. But I now have three bags of fiber sitting in the garage, just waiting to be processed. That is a lot to hand card, so this used mini is just the ticket. And at a reduced price.