Skirting
Ok, so you’ve been gifted with a freshly shorn fleece, straight from the sheep. Obviously it can’t be spun right away, so what now?
These animals wear these coats all year round – in the cold season, in the rain, in the mud, in the snow, etc. They are not exactly the cleanest things found on earth. So the first step is to lay the fleece out flat. If you do it right, it’ll look like a flat sheep and you’ll be able to see where the legs, head, & body were. So you start at one end and begin picking out anything that isn’t actually fiber: poo, burrs, sticks, straw, anything that looks really extremely dirty. This is called skirting, and it’s the most disgusting part of processing a fleece yourself. :) The only plus to this is that if you’re doing a wool fleece, the lanolin that naturally occurs in wool will make your hands nice and soft.
|
|
Washing
+ 
= 
Basically, Dawn + Water + Fleece = soapy fleece. The fleece should sit in the dish soap for a bit, probably anywhere from 15-30min. There are a couple things to remember when washing fleece:
1. NEVER EVER simply throw it in the washing machine. In fact, don’t ever throw anything handspun in the washing machine. This will felt the fleece and ruin it. Felt is made from wool, and it has its place, but it basically makes any fiber one giant, uber mat.
2. Likewise, if you severely agitate the fleece when it’s sitting in water, it’ll felt. Don’t be a human washing machine. It’s ok to rub your fingers through it to rub out the dirt, and turning it over is good too, but don’t get too excited. And when it comes to finer fleece, I’ve learned to move it as little as possible (when it comes to flipping/rotating), because that will just make the fibers tangle more.
3. There are many disputes over the temperature of the water used to wash fleece. The universal consensus is that it CAN’T be cold, but from there things go a little gray. I was originally taught that the water should be lukewarm, otherwise the fleece will felt. However, when I was having problems getting an especially greasy Corriedale (type of sheep) fleece clean, I was told to use water as hot as I could stand. I’ve gradually learned that it’s the drastic change in temperature that will felt a fleece, so I use warm water – not so hot I can’t put my hands in it, but definitely not lukewarm. The water shouldn’t go cool after 10 minutes. It should be able to go a good half hour and still be warm.
Ok, so once you’re done washing it, of course it has to be dried! To me, this is the hard part, because when fleece gets wet it takes up much less volume. But it should be drafted a bunch to help it dry, so it takes up more space. DON’T throw it in the dryer. I’ve never tried it, but it just seems like a bad idea – it would probably felt. The best way to dry fleece is to spread it out on some type of screen. In PA, my favorite way is to borrow my grandmother’s sweater dryer, which is basically a mesh pulled taught between a frame; in AZ, I take the screen out of my window and suspend it between two big under-the-bed containers (as you can see in the pictures). Weather plays a part in how long it takes the fleece to dry – a clear, sunny day is best, with the wool sitting in the sun. It would take much longer in the shade. I’ve also found that fiber dries much better in AZ because the humidity is virtually nonexistent.
|
|
Carding
Once fleece has been washed, it gets sort of… ratty. It tends to clump up on itself, and this would be difficult to spin. Therefore, you’ve got to do something to it so that it’s spinnable, and this process is called carding. It’s pretty similar to the human equivalent of brushing hair – it pulls apart tangles, allows any leftover detritus to fall out and aligns the fibers with each other so they are easy to work with. It becomes fairly light and fluffy, and this is when you truly see the softness of the fiber.
Traditionally, carding is done with something like these carding combs. These particular combs are on indefinite loan from my mom’s best friend Eleanor Sweeney. The tines (for lack of a better word – I’m sure there’s a technical term somewhere) are bent, so the cards are pulled against the bend. This means the handles are across from each other and moving outwards; opposite of this picture. Going with the bend easily removes the fiber. These tines can also be on a drum carder, which works in a similar fashion but is cranked instead.
Imagine the size of a sheep. Now imagine the size of his fleece. See these combs? They’re little, in comparison. Carding is hard on the hands, and takes FOREVER to do an entire fleece. So there’s another alternative – I think this one is nearly every spinner’s dream. You can send your fleeces away to a fiber mill. They use big machines to do anything from washing the fleece, to carding it, to even making it into yarn. All for the right price, of course. Personally, I don’t mind washing my own fleece – it’s something achievable, rather than paying the rather exorbitant price for someone else to do it. But I’ve got 2 sheep, 1 mohair, and 1 alpaca fleece, so I’m saving up to be able to send it all away to a fiber mill.
And then there’s the fact that fiber comes back from a mill in a nice, long wrist-sized “rope” of carded fiber… :D
|
|
SpinningI’ve covered the mechanics of a wheel, so let me cover the actual process itself. You’ve finally got your wool fiber skirted, washed, and carded, so you sit down at the wheel with a fresh bobbin and the wool beside you. Obviously, your feet go on the treadle(s) and push them up and down. But your hands also have to draft the fiber – pulling it apart so that it looks like a cloud, if it’s white. The leader string gets pulled through the orifice with the orifice hook, and the wool is wrapped through the leader string.
But which way to turn the wheel? Well… depending on whom you ask, you will get two different answers. I was first taught to spin the wheel clockwise – this is a S-twist, and may be the more common direction. However, I don’t have the type of personality to just accept something, I like to ask a lot of questions. So when I first started learning, I’m surprised my mentor didn’t throw herself off a cliff or something – what can I say? I like to know things! By the end of the day, I’d basically learned that it doesn’t matter which way the wheel spins, as long as the ply is done the opposite way. A Z-twist yarn is spun counter-clockwise and is usually what I spin because I like to be different, and my wheel seems to naturally spin better that way.
::takes a deep breath:: Ok. Moving on. Basically, using a spinning wheel takes a well-coordinated effort between your feet moving the treadles and your hands drafting the fiber and controlling the twist that travels up the yarn. Unfortunately, if you didn’t get this big long explanation… then there’s not much I can do to help you short of a live demonstration. Maybe there are some videos online, maybe there will be some demonstrations at your local Renaissance Faire or historical society. Before I completely give up and move on, let me quickly cover spinning with a drop spindle.
In my opinion, a drop spindle is more difficult. But please note – that’s MY opinion. Some people find them easier and prefer them. Basically, instead of your feet doing the treadling, you are using your hands to spin the spindle, which twists the yarn. But since you also have to use your hands to draft the fiber, control the twist, hold the fiber/yarn above the spindle, wind the yarn onto the spindle & around the hook… well obviously it takes a bit to get into a rhythm and get the hang of when to do everything.
PlyingOk! So the bobbin is full, I’m done! Ha! Not quite, sorry. :) “Thread” is a good description for single ply yarn – the stuff you spun in the last step. However, this thread is not very strong (unless it’s a specific fiber that doesn’t NEED to be plyed, like hemp or flax) when it is single ply. Not only is it easy to break with your hands, but if you grab an end from the bobbin and unwind it, it gets all twisty and knotted on itself. Of course – it should, because that’s the twist you put in it. But obviously, something’s got to be done about that.
The next step is plying. While there are a couple ways to actually accomplish this, the end result is the same: the yarn is twisted with itself to increase strength. Take a string, fold it in half, twist, and that’s plying. I said you could do it a few ways – the first is to ply from two separate bobbins, if you spun that much thread; the second is to wind an inner pull ball from the bobbin and ply the two ends together. You can use a nifty ball winder to make this easier. I don’t have a picture of this because I don’t have any plying in progress at the moment.
You can also do multiple ply yarn – three, or four. Embroidery thread is normally seven – go count it. :P
WashingOnce the yarn is plied, you have to set the twist. At this point, if you were to pull the yarn off the bobbin like you did in the previous step, it would act just about the same way. This would probably be very difficult to knit with. The way to do this is by washing it… again. But there’s a special way to wash the yarn – using a tool I talked about earlier, a niddy noddy. The yarn gets wound around the niddy noddy; this is also a handy way to see how many yards of yarn are on the bobbin, because one length around the niddy noddy is typically two yards. Once all the yarn is wound onto it, tie it in 4-6 different places with some string. This is called a skein, and normally is seen twisted up, ready to be spun or bought.
Here’s the trick about this wash: the yarn must dry taut. It’s almost more like a soak – the yarn goes in the sink or container for about 15min, filled with warm water. Don’t worry about if it gets twisty, that’s why it got tied in a couple places. The yarn needs to be hung, and weighted so that it is stretched, just a little bit. Enough to pull any twists out, but not so much that it’s extremely stretched. This is called “setting the twist,” because once the yarn is dry, it will not easily gnarl and twist the way it was before. Instead, the individual threads will be wound around themselves.
Once the yarn is dried, it’s ready to be used. Its personal preference whether you simple cut the ties and leave it in a skein, or use the ball-winder to put in a inner-pull ball.
|
