Category: Fibre stuff

I often speak to people who love the look of batts, but are a little indimidated by the idea of turning a rectangular chunk of fibre into yarn, having only previously spun from tops or roving.

A lot of the time, I find spinning from batts as easy, if not easier than using tops…the fibres are a lot fluffier and airer, and minimal effort is required when drafting. For very fine laceweight yarns, tops can be slightly easier, but for all other spinning I love the fluffiness of batts, the fact that you can get an unlimited range of fibre blends, and the fact that they often have pretty sparkle in!

The batts I am working with in this tutorial were carded especially for me by Kristina, who named them ‘Vamp it up’, and they are available in her shop. All other batts pictured were carded by me, and can be found in my shop, or ordered via a custom request if I am out of stock.

There are a few ways to turn these chunks of fibre into yarn:

1) Tearing into strips

Take the batt, and lay it out flat. Most batts made on standard carders will be longer than they are wide, and you will clearly be able to see the ‘grain’ of the fibre running along the length. You will be tearing them into strips along this grain…make the strips as wide or narrow as you want to suit your spinning style.

(I apologise for giving you the finger in the second pic…taking pics of yourself doing fibre stuff in a tiny room while trying to hold the camera remote in your hand is very difficult).

Here’s half the batt torn into strips, and the other half still intact. This pic is very very messy, normally the strips are a lot smoother and the edges much more even, but doing it with a camera remote in your hand is harder than I thought!

And here’s the start of the spun yarn:

This method is a good one to use for layered batts such as these, where you want to retain all the colours in each layer in the full length of the final yarn.

It is also useful if you have two similar but non-identical batts, as you can tear them into strips and spin the strips at random to ensure the finished yarn has even colour distribution.

If you wish to create a self-striping yarn, choose a batt like the one below, and spin the strips in colour order so the yarn gently fades through the shades.

2) Pulling the batt into a roving

Another way to prepare the batt for spinning is to pull it into a roving. Place your hands on the batt just over a staple length apart, and pull gently until you can feel the fibres give. At the start, the batt is very thick, so you will need to grip it fairly hard, but try not to pull apart too hard or you’ll break it. Work your way up and down the batt a few times, always with your hands the same distance apart, pulling a few centimetres each time to thin the batt out. Here’s a couple of pics…the first was at the start, and as you can see I’m holding on fairly tight. The second is after I’ve worked my way up and down a couple of times, so the fibre has thinned out and needs a more gentle touch.

And here’s the final roving, after working up and down the length four or five times.

Finally, the spun yarn.

With the batts I’m using here, there is little difference in the finished yarn with the two above methods, as the colours are evenly distributed throughout the yarn just as they were in the original batts. However, if you have a batt with uneven colour distribution like the one below, this is a good way to get all the shades present into all the yarn.

If I’d have wanted a stripey yarn, i could have torn these batts into strips as above, but I wanted a more even blend with just the odd highlight of the bright colours, so I pulled them into roving before spinning, to make this yarn.

If you prefer a more even thickness roving than you can make this way, then you can use a diz. Thin the fibre out as above until it’s around twice the desired thickness, then gently pull it through a diz into a strip of roving.

3) Tearing horizontally

It is possible, but more difficult, to tear a batt across the grain, if you would like to spin a more woolen yarn. The easiest way to do this is to lay the batt on a hard, flat surface (so, the bottom of a light tent on a bed is NOT a good idea), and put a hard flat object across it (a ruler is good, but of course I couldn’t find one). While pushing down on the ruler, gently pull on the end of the batt, working your way across, to free the fibres. You’ll need to ensure the ruler is placed at least a staple length from the end of the batt, or the fibres won’t be going anywhere!

Here is the piece completely removed, and then rolled up so it can be spun like a handcarded rolag.

You can use this method on any sort of batt you want, though it suits longdraw spinning the best.

4) Removing layers

It is possible, if you’re careful, to gently separate the layers of a batt and spin them individually. For example, if you wanted to spin a batt like this into a striped yarn:

You gently pinch the fibres on the top layer of the batt, and slowly lift them away. I don’t have pictures of this as I didn’t think they would show up very well given that I was using blended rather than layered batts, and also because I don’t like doing it very much, as you get little bits of flyaway fibre everywhere.

I tend to only use this method if I have a colour or a fibre in a batt that I wish to remove before spinning the batt. It’s possible to deconstruct a batt this way to make a stripey yarn, but really it’s a lot easier to buy batts that have the stripes running across the width rather than in layers.

5) Other methods

All the other methods I can think of are combinations of the above. For example, you can tear the batt into strips, and then tear these strips horizontally into chunks, if you really want to mix up the colours in a bright and cheerful batt. Or you could pull a layer off and roll it up into a rolag shape if you’d like to spin longdraw. Don’t be afraid to experiment, the first two techniques alone are very versatile and simple, and will hopefully give you some pointers and ideas about how to spin your batts.

I was asked to write a tutorial on how to use a drum carder. This is a huge topic, so in this first post I will go over the basics. Future posts will cover carding raw fleece, and blending commercially prepped fibres, as well as how to clean your carder.

First, the basics. What is a drum carder?

A drum carder is a machine which is used to prepare fibre for spinning. It has two drums, one small one (sometimes called a licker-in) which helps guide in the fibre, and then a large one, which the fibre ends up wrapped around. When the larger drum is full, the fibre is removed, and the resulting chunk of smooth fibre is called a batt. There are several ways to spin from batts, and I will cover those in future tutorials.

There are several different makes of drum carder, I have a Strauch carder, which can be seen here. I chose the Stauch because it has finer card cloth than the others available, meaning it can be used for carding finer fibres, because the licker in cloth is of a unique design that doesn’t trap the fibre, and because it is chain rather than belt driven, meaning it will hopefully last as long as I do.

My carder (pre-cleaning as I took the pic to use in my cleaning tutorial):

Tools needed to go with a carder

If your carder doesn’t come with clamps to attach it to the table, then these are a very worthwhile investment to stop it moving around as you card and while you’re removing the batt. Here is a photo of the other tools I use with my carder:

The three on the left came with the carder. They are:

Flick carder. Can be used for opening locks of raw fleece before carding, and also for cleaning the drum. I only use it for the latter, I prefer to open locks on a hand carder laid flat on my knee. To use it to clean the drum, hold it against the large drum while turning the handle the opposite way you’d turn when making batts (normally anticlockwise). Don’t move the flick carder from side to side while the drum is turning, do one rotation of the drum with it in one position, then stop and move it over.

Knuckle saving batt pick. This is used to get the batt off the carder. At one place on the drum there are no teeth. When the carder is full, you use this tool along the toothless part of the carder to separate the fibres, an inch or so at a time, until the batt is no longer joined.

Brush. This small brush looks a little like a nailbrush, and is used for cleaning the licker in drum. Due to the design of the cloth on the Strauch, the drum doesn’t get covered in fibre like some other models, but sari silk and angelina especially seem to want to get trapped on it, so brushing with this brush helps free them.

The other tools are my own, and I find they help considerably with using/cleaning the carder.

Long thin forceps. Even after cleaning the drum with the flick carder, there are sometimes a few stray fibres which remain. These forceps are thin enough to get inbetween the teeth to pick out any fibre left over after cleaning. They are also useful for pulling off any fibres which get wrapped around the axles of the drums. Note that while they are thin, the tips are not sharp, so they don’t damage the cloth.

Large needle. I use this to lift off the fibre from the flick carder after cleaning the drum.

Bristle hairbrush.  I couldn’t afford a carder with a brush attachement, so I run this over the drum between layers to squish down the fibres and enable the carder to take more fibre in one go.

How to use a carder, the basics

Most carders have a tray onto which you place the fibre. As the handle is turned, the licker in drum pulls the fibre in under the drum, and deposits it on the larger drum. The large drum turns faster than the smaller one (mine turns 5 times faster), so the fibres are pulled apart as they are deposited onto the drum, smoothing them out.

Here are a few tips which will help you get the best from your carder:

– Don’t put too much fibre into the feed tray at once. You should just be able to see the tray through the fibre. If you put too much on the handle will be hard to turn and the fibres may tear or get caught between the drums. If you are carding commerically prepped roving, you can use as long a length of roving as you like, just make sure the piece is thin enough that the carder runs smoothly.

– Guide the fibre in with your hand. Place your hand on top of the fibre in the feed tray and gently hold it in place, moving your hand as the carder pulls it in. Don’t pull back on the fibre, this will encourage it to wrap around the smaller drum, instead just gently guide it to keep it pulling in smoothly.

– Turn the handle slowly. After a little use you will be able to feel how fast you can turn it and still have the fibres deposited smoothly on the drum. Turning it too fast will be harder work, and may rip the fibres, causing nepps (lumps) in your batt.

– If your carder doesn’t have a brush attachment, get a bristle hairbrush and run this over the drum while turning it between layers. This will help compress the fibre and allow you to get more on the drum. This is especially useful with very fine fibres like angora, which want to fly away all over the place and don’t embed into the teeth on the drum easily by themselves.

– Don’t allow the fibre to ‘fall off’ the edge of the large drum and wrap around the axles or anywhere else on the carder, as this may damage it. It happens to everyone sometimes, but try and move the fibre as soon as it starts to do this, and pull it off the axle immediately.

– When removing the batt, use your doffing tool (or batt pick, or whatever your one is called) to free up just an inch or so of fibres at a time, if you try to do too much you’ll find it very difficult, and you may rip the fibres. Once the batt is separated, take the end furthest from the small drum, and roll the batt up, keeping your hands close to the drum so more of the stray fibres are kept within the batt. The drum will move by itself as you carry on rolling, until your batt is freed.

That is all I can think of at the moment, if you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will update with answers.

I’ve just realised I’ve been neglecting my blog a little recently. I keep thinking of things to write about, then I write them on a forum on ravelry and don’t put them on here. I just spent half an hour typing up a post about longdraw, so I thought i would share it here.

Firstly, some of you may be asking what is longdraw? Well, it’s a drafting technique which, when used with rolags, allows you to produce a woollen yarn. Not ‘woollen’ as in ‘made from wool’, but woollen meaning a light and airy yarn which combines the long and short fibres from a fleece, wrapped round a core of air, making for a fluffy, bouncy, lofty yarn. This technique can be used for spinning other types of prep making a technically semi-woolen yarn, but with the same fluffy properties (though only spinning from rolags will give you the air core).

The technique relies on one of the properties of yarn (well, of any thread), that is, that twist will build up in thin areas, leaving the thicker areas untwisted. As you pull back, the twist holds together the thin areas, and thins out the thicker areas so you end up with an even single. This is why using a good prep is essential; if the fibres are long and running parallel to the yarn, some fibres from the thick areas will get trapped in the thinner areas and your lumps will be ‘locked’ in place. With a rolag, the fibres are running perpendicular to the length of the yarn, they will be pulled diagonally as you draft, so they overlap and the yarn doesn’t disintegrate, but the end result will be fibres that travel in a corkscrew path along the length of the yarn, rather than fibres all aligned straight and parallel twisted around each other. This method allows very short stapled fibres such as cashmere to be spun with ease, where a short forward draft would be difficult and time consuming.

These tips are aimed for people looking to try longdraw who have never done it before, they are just a few small things I found helpful when first starting. This isn’t a technique I’d recommend for beginning spinners, short forward draws are a lot easier to learn and do from commercially prepped tops/roving, which are easily available. Of course, in the past when using a great wheel, and in countries where cotton is the only available fibre for beginners, people did/do start off with a longdraw method (though maybe great wheel spinners started on spindles?), and they cope just fine, but given the tools and fibre preps available to us today, complete beginners will probably find themselves making yarn a lot more quickly and easily using another technique. This post is designed to help more experienced spinners who are comfortable with spinning and know their way around their wheel, but who want to add the longdraw technique to their spinning arsenal.

– First, pick your fibre. It’s possible to do longdraw from almost anything, but the easiest to start off with is well carded rolags of a medium fineness, medium staple (around 3 inches), nicely sproingy wool. I think my first longdraw was done using rolags from a jacob fleece, but i might have forgotten something else I used. Either way, airy preps like rolags or batts are a lot easier than roving.

– attach the fibre to your leader and spin the first foot or so using whatever drafting style you’re comfortable with. While it is possible to longdraw right from the start, when you’re first starting it’s harder to get this join right, and set the thickness of the yarn you want…starting from a patch of ready spun yarn is easier.

– You want your tension to be just high enough that it winds the yarn on quickly when you let it, but low enough that it doesn’t try and pull the yarn out of your hands. A higher ratio than you’d normally use for the particular thickness of yarn is desirable, but not essential, if your wheel only has one ratio, you can just treadle more before and after the draft to make up for it.

– start off holding your rolag with a few inches of ready spun yarn in front of the orifice, this will hold some twist and allow it to be redistributed throughout the part you draft.

– with your back hand (in my case, my left), pinch off a bit of your rolag. The exact amount will depend on the thickness of yarn you’re wanting to spin, but an inch or two is normally plenty…err on the side of too little at the start….too little and your drafting length will be shortened, too much and you’ll need a magic extendable arm to pull the fibres out long enough. Unless you have such a magic arm, the result will be that your yarn is very lumpy.

– Use the thumb and first finger of your front hand to hold the yarn just in front of the orifice. It’s this that you’ll be pulling back against. If you’ve built up enough twist in the few inches of already drafted yarn, this hand can stay in place until the end of the draft, but chances are you’ll have to open your fingers a couple of times during the draft to allow more twist in to hold the yarn together.

– pull back with your back hand, it’s a fast draft compared to short draw, but it isn’t THAT fast a movement, it should be fluid. Watch the yarn. You’ll see it break into big lumps held together by thinner areas. If you’ve got enough twist there, continuing to pull back will smooth out the lumps, leaving the thin areas as they are. If you see the yarn start to drift apart due to lack of twist, allow some more in with your front hand. Keep pulling back until there are no more thick spots (the yarn won’t be totally even, so don’t worry too much, most unevenness will come out in the plying).

– wait, and treadle. This is a long draft in a short period of time, you’ll need to treadle for a while to make up for it and get enough twist into the yarn before allowing it to wind on. Using a fibre of varigated colour makes this part easier as you can see the angle of twist so you won’t need to be stopping to check plybacks all the time. After a while you’ll get into a routine and know how many treadles you do while drafting, and how many to do afterwards.

– Pay attention to the feel of the yarn with your back hand. It’s reaaaaaally hard to explain, but once you’ve got it, you’ll be going by feel, it feels almost like you’re pulling on a piece of elastic. The feeling is probably the most important thing in terms of setting your drafting speed, and the hardest to explain.

That’s all i can think of at the moment…I hope it helps. If your computer is up to it, watch a few youtube videos to see different people’s styles…this vid is good cos you can see exactly what both her hands are doing: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z92IpGYh8RE.

Be aware that the american and english longdraw are different…both are still longdraw, they both involve drafting way more than the staple length of fibre, but there are slight differences in what your hands do….which are explained in this post: http://spinningspiderjenny.blogspot.com/2006/11/drafting-…. What I’ve explained above is the english longdraw, personally I find the american unsupported longdraw the most fun cos i can do it one handed, but its a little fiddlier to do cos I find you need to mess with your tension a little more to get it right, and its harder to explain as a step by step process, as it relies on how the yarn feels even more so than the english version.

I hope this helps some of you on your path to longdraw fun, and if anyone reading this (does anyone actually read this??) has any questions, just ask in the comments and I’ll answer in a later post.