We’re on post 4 of this series about spinning a fleece and it’s still not time for the spinning wheel! Before we get there, we have to prep the cleaned fiber so it’s easier to spin. You can prep fiber in a couple of different ways – one of which is not prepping at all! For this project, I chose to card the fiber using a drum carder. This helps loosen up the fiber and gets it in loose alignment.
You can card fiber using hand cards – but doing so with a whole fleece takes a really long time! Instead, I like to use a drum carder which allows you to card large amounts of fiber faster. Once you’ve run your fiber through the carder a few times, you can remove it either as a bat (shown above) or you can use a little tool called a diz to create roving directly from the carder. I have varying amounts of success creating roving this way, so I decided to create bats. I ended up with 5 bats of probably 2-3oz each from this fleece.
Kt’s Drumcarder Tools
Drumcarder: I use a Handmade Standard Classic Carder and I LOVE it! It is compact, easy to store when I’m not using it, and is easy to use.
Porcupine Quill: I use this to help remove fiber from the carder and to help clean up. I also use it help remove neps from the fiber.
Awl: I use this to break the bat to remove it from the carder at the end.
Flicker card: This small hand card is used to “flick” the fiber – this helps open up the locks for carding.
Kt’s Steps for Carding Fiber
- Flick the tips and ends of the locks and then pull them apart to create a fuzzy kind of fiber cloud.
- Load the carder making sure to use a small amount of fiber – you want to be able to see the bed of the drumcarder under the fiber.
**Overloading the carder will capture fiber on the licker (the small drum that pulls fiber onto the big drum) and it’s very annoying. - Turn the handle and let the carder do it’s thing! The fiber should be pulled under the licker and then onto the big drum.
- Repeat until the big drum starts to look full, then use the flicker brush to pack the fiber down – this will help you load more fiber onto the drum.
- Once the drum is full and you can only see the tops of the carder teeth, you are done! It’s time to remove the bat.
- Use the awl to break the bat at the top of the drum – there should be a metal grove on your drum. Just turn the handle until that groove is sitting at the top of the drum. Run the awl along that grove for about one inch, then pull up, separating the bat. Repeat this for 1″ chunks until the entire bat is broken.
- Slowly pull the bat away from the drum – you want to pull along with the angle of the teeth, towards the back of the drumcarder. This is where I start using the porcupine quill to help pull the fiber away from the bat – it doesn’t pull away smoothly by itself!
- Once the bat is off the drum, separate a small piece from the bat and pull it apart so it’s a thin layer of fiber.
- Load the drumcarder with this fiber and start the process again! You’ll use small sections of the bat until it is carded a second time.
- You may need to repeat step 9 several times until it is nice and smooth. For this particular fleece, I carded the fiber a total of 3 times.
Step 6: removing the bat
Next week we’ll finally start with the spinning wheel!
