OK I am still relatively new ro spinning. To spin a perfect woolen yarn, you want a carded preperation and use long draw.

I do not yet have time to prepare my fibre myself, though maybe for woolen I should, since Oliver bought ne a drum carder for Christmas.

My question is are tgere commercially available carded fibres?

Thank you,

Erica 

Comments

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 14:40

barleycorn

Hi Erica,

I struggle with the same question myself. I have spun long draw in the past from a pencil ROVING that a local mill prepared and it was very light and bouncy. I think that a preparation called TOP has the fibers more aligned. A spinning teacher once told me to choose a TOP that is open and airy. You can spin TOP by breaking a short length and spinning from the fold and you would get a semi-woolen yarn. Longdrawjames on Youtube is very informative. I guess the ultimate long draw spinning is from hand carded rolags. It seems like a drum carder aligns the fibers also but many people spin woolen from this preparation. I will be interested to see what others think.

 

Fri, 10/23/2015 - 15:00

[email protected]

Local source can be best.  These are my local to Massachusetts sources that have strong on-line presence.

http://www.feltingsupply.com/    Site of the New England Felting Supply Company.

Flyingfibers.com    Jeri Robinson-Lawrence raises Wensleydales and does beautiful dyeing.  Can also get locks for tailspinning.  The store located in Lancaster County, PA also carries products from England.  Local to where my daughter went to college for anyone wondering how a Pennsylvania source ended up on my list of favorite sources.

Yarnandfiber.com     Retail store in Derry, NH. Poducts range from carded fleece to their own Ivy Brambles yarn.

In looking up URLs, I found also Loopoftheloom.com

Loop bullseye bumps might also be of interest to you.

Mon, 11/16/2015 - 08:54

ruthmacgregor (not verified)

Erica, even without special equipment you can make something close to rolags from commercially combed top, and once it's made into almost-rolags, you can spin it with the long-draw technique.

Grip the tip of the commercial top with one hand and pull out a staple length of wool. Repeat, and pile these pulled-off bits into a stack with their fibers all going the same way. Repeat and repeat. (You're making something that can pretend to be a batt created by hand cards. It will be a fluffy stack.)

When the fluffy stack is about an inch thick, roll it up as you would roll up a hand-carded batt: from "top" to "bottom" rather than from side to side. In other words, you're rolling it so the fibers are spiralling or coiled, not rolled up straight. That's the secret of rolags -- they let you draft from coiled fibers, which makes it easy to spin a lofty yarn (a true woollen).

Try it, and I think you'll find it a big improvement over trying to spin long-draw from a commercial top -- or even from many commercial batts.

Ruth (who feels an excellent spinning season coming on)