The Wool Goes 'Round

Making roving with a drum carder

While at the Fleece & Fibre Show in New Zealand, Joanne demonstrated how to take fiber off of the large drum of a carder as a roving rather than as a batt. Otto captured it in two short videos that we think you might enjoy. If you like, you can view them at our Flickr site. Or you can watch them right here! (The wonders of modern technology :-)

Isn't that cool? The diz that Joanne is using is a large button. She keeps it pretty close to the card cloth, and is careful not to try to pull too much through at once. You also have to keep in mind the length of the fiber itself. It's a lot like drafting when you're spinning.

If you give this a try at home let us know how you like it. We'd love to see some photos of your drum carder roving too!

A smidgen of dye for a small sample of fiber.

We wanted to let you know about a handy gadget we've found really useful for dyeing small amounts of fiber. The Dash, Pinch, and Smidgen spoons really came in handy when we were testing out some new dyes that we got from Greener Shades. (I got my set as a gift, but Joanne found hers at our local gourmet/gift shop, the Gourmet Pantry in Blacksburg, VA. If you can't find them at a locally owned retailer near you, try this Google search.)

A week or so ago we decided to do some sample dyeing at lunch time. (Have I mentioned that we have lots of fun at work?) Joanne got out some white wool, probably Shetland, that she had washed and carded. We weighed out little 1/2 ounce batts on the digital scale. These we soaked in warm water while we measured out the dye.

Each 1/2 ounce packet of dye (about 3 teaspoons) is enough to dye 3 pounds of fiber. Doing some fancy math, we decided that for our 1/2 ounce of fiber we would need 1/32 of a teaspoon of dye, or a smidgen. (This is based on 1 teaspoon of dye for a pound,  1/16 teaspoon for an ounce (16 oz/Lb), 1/32 teaspoon for 1/2 oz.)

As per the instructions that came with the dyes, we dissolved each of our colors in a little hot water in a pint mason jar. We then added more hot water. Then in went the wet fiber, which we pushed down with our dyeing utensils, and gave a gentle stir. 

(Never use your cooking utensils - keep a separate set just for dyeing!)

Next, not following the directions which tell you to first heat the dyepot until it steams, we added the vinegar. Based on the measurement of one cup per pound of fiber, we did some more fancy math and scaled it down to 2 teaspoons per 1/2 ounce of fiber.

Then we put the mason jars in the big dye pot and heated the whole thing up until the dye in the jars started to simmer gently. We let it simmer for five minutes or so, then let the whole thing cool down.

After the fiber cooled down, we rinsed carefully in warm water. The dyebaths were exhausted, and the water was clear when it went down the drain. The nice thing about these dyes is that we weren't adding any heavy metals to the waste water!

And here you have it: Greener Shades Ruby Red, Coral Reef Aqua, Sunshine Yellow, and River Blue!

 

(The lovely tea towel pictured with the spoons doesn't go anywhere near a dyepot, but is very handy for drying dishes and staging photos! The towel was woven by Liz's friend Meridith as part of the Handweavers Guild of the New River Valley 2008 Tea Towel Exchange. )

Feeding a sock machine

Michael in WI writes: "I thought I would send a pic of a ball wound onto a paper towel tube so that I can use skeined yarn on my circular sock machine. The Jumbo Ball Winder does an EXCELLENT job!"

Thanks, Michael, a pat on the back feels soooooo good!

Very clever of you to use the core so you can unwind the ball from the outside.

Ball Winders on my mind....

Hey there! The weather has finally warmed up a bit in Happy Valley. Otto has the wood stoves turned down to "bake" rather than "broil" and we even had to crack open the windows to let in some cool air! Spring's coming. Real soon now. We're sure it is.

We've mostly recovered from inventory and we're back in full production mode this week. With the able assistance of Gregory and Otto, I got a bunch of ball winders made this week. We sent to some of our dealers and drop-shipped a bunch to lucky individuals.

If you've gotten a Strauch Jumbo Ball Winder, you may have noticed that they come with a little ball of yarn wound on them. We test every ball winder we sell by winding a large ball of yarn. This gives us a chance to make sure that everything is adjusted just right so your winder will work perfectly.

Here are a few hints for happy winding:

• Make sure your winder is securely clamped to a bench or table at a comfortable height.
• The yarn should wind freely from it's source (a skein on a swift, another ball, a cone of yarn, etc.). If the yarn catches and jerks it can pull the ball out of shape.
• Keep an even tension on the yarn.
• Don't wind too fast!
• Remember to slip the drive band off the pulleys when you're done winding. That will keep the band from getting stretched out.

Have you wound a particularly lovely ball of yarn on your winder? We'd be glad to see it. Send us a digital photo for our scrapbook.

'Til next time, happy winding everyone!