What I Did On My Stay-cation

I've been on stay-cation this week because (1) the office was closed on Monday, (2) Jewish holidays, and (3) early in the week, I took classes on preparing fiber for spinning it into yarn. It was pretty nice to be off for a bunch of days and not pack a suitcase for a change!!!

I took plenty of pics from the classes -- Without further ado:

This, my friends, is not an ancient instrument of torture or a prop from the "Saw" movies. This is called a picker and it gives a big loose combing to crunched up fleece. It actually works very nicely to prepare fleece for more fine combing. However, it is important not to get your hands in the wrong spots or wear loose clothing.















Here is some fleece before and after the carding process. The carding greatly helps to prepare fleece for spinning. Theoretically, the more combed out the fleece is, the easier it is to spin a nice smooth fine yarn. I say "theoretically" because I can chunk it up no matter what I start out with.















This picture is an example of the different effects of color blending that one can get from using different approaches when carding fleece.














Now, we move onto some of the stuff I prepared using my own drum carder. This was a mixture of green and yellow fleece:















Here's my drum carder in action! You feed some fleece loosely onto one side, turn the handle, the drum turns and as it turns, it combs the fleece!















Here is an example of a batt I produced with red, coral, yellow and brown to get a fall color effect going:
















And, finally, some yarn...this yarn is from fleece I prepared and then spun using some art yarn techniques. All along my path to learn how to do this stuff, this is what it is all about for me. I'm off and running now!!!