Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Turning a wooly jumper into a wooly jumper! Or such similar things



Hi there all.  Once again it has been some time since I blogged, but life has a horrid habit of getting in the way of fun things.

Here I am now though.  Today I have pictures for you of all of us working on carding wool for a later workshop on spinning.  Preparation is all and the wool has to be carded beautifully before we can even begin to spin.  So here are some pictures for you. Sadly, none containing yours truly were printable, but imagine my smiley face there any way. Lol. 

We are so lucky  to have access to a lot of fleeces, and potentially lots of carding and spinning too.  Michael, whose jolly face appears further down the page was able to help us get some, and so was Adam, who does not appear. 

So first of all Tina took out the fleece, after placing a sheet on the floor first.  After all it had just been hoovered. I assure you all it does happen at least once a week! We have lots of cats, and here is Willow showing an interest in all those lovely smells.

The size of the fleece amazed some who were there who had never before seen a fleece up close.  Tina talked about the staple, or length of the wool,and where the finest, softest parts were to be found.

  Then she showed everyone how to load the carders.





Then she showed us how to do it, and what not to do. There was some surprise as it was harder to do than expected.  


But everyone got on with it and we tried to get step by step photo's for all to see.  Here is Michael showing us his 'rollog'.  NO!  I am not swearing, truly that is what a carded roll of wool is called, and you need a fair few of these to make balls of wool.


Here is Jack, concentrating greatly on taking the rollog off the carder, and Mimz with her first ever rollog.
So lots of fun was had by all, but despite the hard work, the fleece did not appear to be any smaller than when we started, although 10 rollogs were made.  We will do more next week as we are determined to have plenty of fun with the spinning. Between us we have three sets of carders and three sets of spinning wheels, plenty enough for my little home to accommodate any way.   However certain kittens have shown a great deal more interest in my spinning wheels than they should have done, and now they need to have the tension band reapplied, and the tension band now refitted!  They are in to all sorts, those kittens, and will no doubt be up for more photo opportunities as the weeks go on!

Any way, we carded and talked and ate loads of Tina's delicious lemoney pie which landed on top of Jack's wonderful grass hopper pie.  Yummy very nice.  Fun was had by all and more fun expected.  


I will keep you all informed.