Polar Opposite Socks Project – Step 4 by
Pegg Thomas
The batts are beautiful and ready to prepare for spinning.
There are several ways of spinning from a drum carded batt. Here are
a
few:
1) roll the whole batt into a huge rolag starting at the
narrow end and spin from the end, this is a bit awkward as the resulting rolag
is too large to hold easily, and the fibers tend to draft out color by color
instead of blending
2) tear the batt into thin strips and spin from the end,
this is a nice way to keep control of the colors as they enter the twist,
just be sure and tear the strips thin enough
3) roll the whole batt into a huge rolag starting at the
narrow end and pre-draft the roving out from the end, this will result in
the colors being quite random in the final roving
4) tear the batt into the letter M, leaving ends attached,
and then gently draft the M into roving, moving hands along the roving and
pulling the roving out thinner and thinner.
5) Roll the whole batt into a huge rolag starting at the
long edge and draft out the roving over several passes of hands moving along
the length, pulling and drafting
I chose to use the 5th method listed above. To keep the colors blending
and as even as possible during the spinning, I think I’ll like this one best.
The photo shows the front batt just rolled along the length. The next
roving up has had one pass of hands along the length. The roving above
that is after 2 passes and the top roving has had 3 passes and is ready to
be rolled into a ball.
Take your time and do a good job on the drafting. It will help the
colors to not pull apart and give you a better blending job in the end.
It also gives a good opportunity to pick out bits of burrs, hay, dead bugs
and whatever else you have to deal with if you don’t start with good quality
wool. (Note to self: life is too short to deal with nasty fibers.)
But “nasty old Hamp” or not, these balls of roving look great and my fingers
are just itching to start the spinning! On to step
5!
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few:
On to step
5!