Quick Carding Session

This morning, if you had stepped out our front door, might have made you hesitate before saying, "Ah, first day of Fall." My first thought when bringing my drum carder out on our patio was, "Yikes, it's hot and humid for 8:00 in the morning." Nevertheless, I ran out of spinnable wool yesterday and so carding in the humidity was a must if I was going to enjoy any spinning this evening.

My drum carder is something I'm pretty happy about. It's not fancy like the type the high-flyers use (I refer here to the BMW or Mercedes of drum carders like the Patrick Green or the Fricke which cost a small fortune). It is homemade from the sweat of my own back and definitely looks it! I'll have to show pictures of it in the process of being constructed another time when I can find the pictures.

This is how it works for those of you not familiar with drum carding:

1) Tease out a few locks of wool (see bottom picture for a visual of "locks") so that the feeder tray is visible through the wool that you're feeding in. If you feed in big clumps the carder will jam or you'll get big lumps in your final product.

2) As you are feeding wool in to the front, small drum, turn handle to draw the wool from the front drum to the back drum. Keep doing this until your batt is the thickness you want.

3) Peel batt off large drum carefully. This would be the time to use a "knuckle-saving batt picker" if you have one. I think this is a Fricke patented item, but a skewer or knitting needle works great too.

The finished batt!

The bottom basket here is the Stansborough fleece locks, cleaned but not carded. The top basket is carded Stansborough that I prepared on my carder.