Carding and Spinning

Today week two of the very interesting Sheep to Hat course and we learnt carding. We grouped into two pairs for using the roller drum carder and the hand carder. The hand carder was easy to card the fleece with moving it to and fro one carder to the other and then lifting it all off. This will be used to spin with. We swapped to the drum carder you turn the handle and little pieces of fleece get taken under the roller and round the drum so you then get a wider amount when you are finished. These can cost anything from £250 said our tutor but she was lucky she said she got hers from Ebay for £150 We went back to the table with the carded fleece and learnt to use the hand spinner turning it with the right hand the left holding the piece of fleece higher than the spinner winding round the spinner letting it fall off with each turn until it was an even thickness. We were shown a colourful book of different sheep types sheep and their fleece, long and short and one sheep who doesn't need to be sheared because it looses its fleece naturally. We can take the hand spinner home and decide what to make and finish spinning the fleece. A lady there brought in a bag of Alpaca fleece she had given to her and said we could help ourselves, which we did the fleece was soft with colours of brown through to cream. We can use any wool to add to what we are making and next week we will learn to use a spinning wheel. There is a break after that for half term.I haven't decided what to make yet! Here you can see a youtube video A Navajo Weaver