Members' Tips and Tricks
Members are invited to show off their experience and expertise by submitting "Tips and Tricks" for this page. Below are the articles submitted as of 3/5/2010:
Ball-Plying Procedure, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Carding Directions, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Centerpull Ball Tips, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Clean Wool, Pre-Spinning Preparation, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Dyeing Evenly, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Making A Distaff, and Spinning Bast Fiber, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Wool Scouring, by Elena Dent (added 2/24/2005)
Carding Directions
First, I use the curve back cards. It's what I started with, and the way I work they're better for me. Some people mark their cards left and right [hand] and don't deviate, I don't. It works for them, so bear in mind this is how *I* do this, your results will differ.
Please try several methods until you find one that will give you results you like. Your purpose is to 'brush' the fiber, exactly like you brush your hair to get out the tangles while avoiding adding tangles or neps. You cannot remove a lot of vegetable matter, although the finer chaff will often drop out of your wool as you work. You cannot remove noils. You will remove tangles and fluff the wool preparatory to making batts or rovings. How you do that can be done quite differently, as you've seen by watching others.
Ok. First, I do NOT work hard at carding. You should not either because it risks damage to your wrists and fiber and it is *not fun* and so should be avoided. I hold my cards in my fists, with my wrists straight, one card face up the other down.
Being left handed, I load my left card this way: I take a chunk of wool and embed it in the leading (edge away from the handle) third of the card, tugging a bit so the wool is already starting to be brushed and the end of the wool is extending a bit beyond the edge of the card. I keep doing this until the lead edge is covered but the card is not so stuffed that the teeth are not visible. If I'm carding glitz I put a layer of wool, a drizzle of glitz and a second, thinner layer of wool. The amount of wool will be found by trial and error, too much or too little tend to cause more tangles, but bear in mind that the wool will fluff as it's carded so what looks like 'not quite enough' probably actually IS enough.
Now, to card: Some say 'engage the teeth' others say 'do not engage the card teeth'. I say, "Do not engage the teeth" I say this because you are trying to transfer your wool from one card to the other, and to do this you must not engage the teeth of the cards in each other (or bring the cards so close to each other that the teeth are sliding between each other, if that makes more sense) because it tears at the wool and causes tangles.
So, to transfer the wool, holding the cards so the full card is face up but tipped lead edge up and the empty card is face down, lead edge tipped up so that when you bring the lead edge of the full card up and the back edge of the empty card down you are starting to brush the wool tips and also rocking both cards so that at the end of the stroke you have done two things: You've rocked the cards so that when you open your hands the cards stop with the 'full' card upright and the 'nearly empty' card face down, aimed sort of at your elbow. Keep your wrists straight, not bending or twisting. You've made your first complete stroke of brushing the wool. You've sort of brushed, sort of 'laid' the wool into the once empty card, pulling enough to align the wool and also making sure some wool extends beyond the lead edge of the once empty card. Keep doing this, transferring and brushing and aligning the wool until the first card is empty (although a bit of odds and ends left buried at the bottom of the teeth is common) and the once empty card is full. Make sure, as you brush the cards past each other and get ready to make the next stroke, that you do not 'swirl' the ends of the cards around each other and tangle the floating ends.
Ok, you've gotten the wool carded to your satisfaction. Now what? I hold my cards face to face, then hook the handle edge of the empty card under the lead edge of the full card (under the fringe of wool) and lift the batt off in one quick clean movement (usually) Make sure the card edges are parallel and lined up, you want to take the wool off in one clean quick lifting motion.
Now you've got one batt done. You can do one of two things. Lay it on a table and make a group of them, laid end over end so they're sorta the same thickness and lay a dowel on them at about a 20 degree angle and roll the group up, then gently stretch the wool 'slug' into a thin wool 'snake' and proceed to spin. Or, roll the single batt so the fibers are lengthwise and stretch that over several gentle passes to open the much smaller wool slug into a little wool worm and spin that. Which ever way you choose, don't do the final stretching until you're actually ready to spin because the wool will compact again in storage and you want your fiber loose and airy for smoother easier spinning.
Depending on your fiber and personal style, and how much wool you loaded, it may take as little as two or three passes (complete fiber transfer from one card to the other) or as many as five to seven to card nicely. Bear in mind, you should card only enough to brush your wool out and ready it for spinning. If you are blending colors you don't want to card so much that the color variations disappear (I've done that, the waiting wool looked like rose petals, all shades of crimson, scarlet, rose, orange... the finished batts were a very even 'knock your eyes out scarlet') Nor do you want to card too little and not open the wool up. Each fleece is different, experiment. Also, if you had very few noils (little pill like lumps) and more carding makes more noils you are making your life worse, STOP.
You may need to clean your cards. As you work bits of wool tend to get embedded in the teeth, eventually causing tangles. What I do then is hold the cards carefully face to face, teeth fully enmeshed and actually touching the 'card cloth' and brush them together, a bit at a time, using the cards to clean out the junk. Don't use too much force, you don't want to damage the wires, but each stroke you should be able to move the cards a bit more, from almost no motion to a full stroke, then kinda rock the cards too, until you see that mess roll up sort of like a rolag, but a really unpleasant one. Throw out this fiber, it's short tangled junk.
You may be 'swirling' your ends as the cards pass, not clearing as you should. Don't do that. You may have too little fiber on your cards, try one batt with more fiber on it and see if that helps.
You could have a fragile fleece, like Shetland. Card more gently, make more gentle passes instead fewer harder ones. Make the motion more of a 'laying down' from one card to the other rather than a 'yanking through'. Remember, I said you shouldn't work hard - more gentle passes are better than fewer harder passes, for your wrists and your wool. They go quickly too, it takes the same amount of time to do five gentle passes as three hard ones.
You might have a weak or tender fleece; or it could have a lot of second cuts. Well, if it's a weak fleece... It's going to be a novelty yarn, not worsted. Depending on how you spin and what purpose you want this wool to serve, it could be ok. Card as little as possible to get the wool opened up, and very gently. Use it for socks (where it can felt and not cause too much trouble) or a shawl or blanket weft (because it won't get as much wear as a garment), not a sweater, coat or vest (pills make a finished garment look messy and unkempt, so it's a waste of your work). If it's got a lot of second cuts and is an otherwise excellent fleece, learn how to comb. Take an all day workshop with an experienced comber though, those things are dangerous and they aren't always the right preparation for every fleece. I've never managed to use them well, but I don't think I had the right wool for the purpose either.
If your wool is greasy, you can re scour it, it will make your life easier, use hot water and care and you can get that wool clean. If it's stiff and sticky, like it's got wax in it and you're actually tearing at the wool and getting little horrible clumps... congratulations, you've got a merino that was not completely scoured.
You might be able to save this. Get a lingerie bag and fill it reasonably full of wool. Then bring some water to a full galloping boil in any pot but a 'non stick' one (they stick nicely to the bags) Turn off the water, drop in some Dawn dish washing detergent, drop in the bag o' wool. Wait about 15 minutes. Get some rinse water ready, at least as hot as the wash water. Transfer the wool. Keep rinsing, each time bringing the rinse water down a bit in temperature until you can handle the bag. Open the bag while the water is still as hot as you can stand and make sure the center isn't still dirty. You can gently move the wool around if it's in water, the water will support the wool and keep it from matting down and felting. Get the rinse completely clean, drain the bag, roll in a towel to get rid of excess water and lay to dry.
Merino that has to be viciously scoured will be a bit cottony and harsh, but it will take dye beautifully once it's really clean.
Personally, I flick all my fleeces (except double coated breeds or karakul) with a doffer or pet rake before scouring them so the second cuts, junky bits and weak tips are gone long before I get to carding. This also means I've never felted a fleece, from shetland to merino, because the flicking opened the wool so nicely before I ever got to scouring.