With Anya's new cage built and several ounces of her fur waiting to be used, Molly and I decided to get to work on blending. We ideally want to achieve a 5 percent angora composition blending it with the woolpaca that we bought from our friend Kathy. That would add that extra bit of super soft luxury to the yarn, but not make it too hot. We also wanted to preserve the great springy memory that the current blend has. Molly mentioned that she would like to try dying it after it is spun, maybe a nice bright orange color. I am looking into that. Neither of us have done anything like blending fibers before. We had practiced spinning with our drop spindle before. It is very fun and not too difficult. Molly made some pretty good yarn last year.
In the top right hand corner of the above picture you can see one of our yarns we spun last year when we were learning. We ordered an random assortment of roving from Kathy last year. That yarn was our experiment with plying. It looks awesome with the two colors. I started by taking small sections of the woolpaca from the thick roving we ordered. There are a few bits of straw and hay stuck in it, so I had to go through my sections and pick them out. We want this yarn to end out being perfectly soft to wear it next to your skin. The wool in the blend is so superfine and soft that after the VM (vegetable matter) is picked out, I am sure it will be soft enough. I experimented with leaving it in and seeing if the combing would remove it. It didn't really take much of it out.
Next I prepared some locks of angora by sorting and picking it. The woolpaca fibers are a bit longer than the rabbit fur I was using so a lot of it came our in the combing. I think that by adding about 10 percent angora fibers and combing it until it is blended it comes out just how we want it. The shorter fibers and tangles removed by the combs work great in the carders and blend up to make a nice rolag with a higher percentage of angora. The combed roving is much smoother and shinier with longer fiber length, but the carded rolags make a fluffier roving. It is interesting. Using this method there is no waste at all. The process would go much faster if we had larger combs, or a blending hackle, but for our little project the mini combs work just fine. Here is a step by step photo illustration of the process:
You can see the little bits of hay we had to pick out.
To get them out you have to spread the fibers and pick them one by one. There is no short cut that I could devise.
When I think I am done I hold it up to the light and check again.
I stick the bits on my pants leg until I am done with the section I am working on.
Then I wad it all up and throw it away.
I prepare two small sections to get ready to comb.
Loading the fiber on the mini combs takes a bit of practice. Basically you skewer the very end of the lock or roving and grab it just past the fiber length and pull. You basically comb it on, bit by bit.
Try to get it all between the outer tines. If you get it on the outside it mostly gets left behind.
I load it about half way, then sandwich in the angora for blending.
The locks of angora have been stored in a Tupperware container. This is from Anya's first haircut.
I took each lock and picked apart the ends so they fluffed up like this.
Loading angora onto the combs is a bit harder. The fibers are shorter and slippery.
Here is a lock, close up. I picked out the guard hairs you can see,
fluffed it up,
and added it to the comb.
Next I added another layer of woolpaca. The actual combing process is hard to photograph with stills, but here are some pictures of Molly doing it:
Always point the tines away from yourself. They are sharp! The left hand holds the left comb pointing upward or downward and the right hand combs through the wool. The first few swipes should start closer to the tips. Then you work closer and closer to the tines of the stationary comb. Each swipe moves more of the wool from the stationary comb to the other.
When you have moved it all, except the short or tangled bits, switch the combs to the opposite hands.
See how fluffy it looks after combing it?
This is what was left after on the stationary comb the first time.
All of these short and tangled bits left behind go onto the carder.
After this first transfer you can still see the stripe of angora in the middle here.
After three or four more transfers, its pretty mixed.
I fluffed the fibers up on the comb, spreading them out.
Here is what it looks like from the other side.
To get the blended wool off the combs and make a roving, I just grab the tip of fibers and pull gently.
As the fiber comes off I keep moving my fingers up towards the comb little by little, pulling just about the distance of the fiber length each time.
When you get to the point when it thins out and little tangles or nibs start showing on the tines it is time to separate it from the comb.
These left overs get added to the carder along with the left overs from the combing.
Here is what I pulled off this one combing. All uniformly blended and smooth. Just think how long it would be if these weren't mini combs. I think it is pretty impressive.
After I draft it a bit more and give it a small twist to keep it together this is what it looks like.
Now for the stuff I put on the carder.
It looks pretty good and combed after just a couple transfers.
I card it until it is mostly moved to the right hand card then transfer it back by catching the hanging fibers on the top of the first card and rolling them off with the motion of the second card onto the first.
Once it is good and smooth I just roll it off onto my pants leg.
To make a rolag you just roll this up.
Nice and neat.
Here the rolag and the combed roving are next to each other.
When it is drafted and wound up the roving from the rolag is fluffier. It has shorter fibers and more bunny, so it looks greyer.
All that is left to do is spin it. Well, there is a lot more to blend and card. We spun up a few test pieces to see what it spun up like.
These small bits were the first ones I made trying out different techniques. The close one has lots of VM in it still because it is the one that I tired combing and carding out the VM.
Molly spun the top one here from a combed roving that she made from start to finish. I spun the bottom one from a few rolags I put together and drafted out.
Molly's combed yarn, close-up.
A closer look at the rolag yarn.
I am still looking into dying the yarn. I think we will try koolaid dying, just to see what it's like, but I want to get some good fiber dyes. Maybe my next post on this blog will have some dying experiments and knitting with our new homespun yarn. Molly needs to make something with her yarn for her school project. Maybe something small and easy, like a hat.
