Fiber Terms Demystified: Verbs

Hello and welcome, to another rendition of Fiber Terms Demystified! Our focus will be on some fiber preparation verbs.

Skirt - Many times your fiber friend may talk about skirting a fleece. They aren't talking about putting a skirt on a sheep. They're talking about taking away the unwanted pieces of a fleece. These pieces have dung, urine, and vm. By doing this the fleece will be easier to clean and cleaner during the next various parts of the fiber processing.

Pick - Picking is done after the fleece has been skirted and cleaned. A bench picker is used to quickly open the locks. Bench pickers are used for when you have a lot of fleece to be picked open. Otherwise, flickers are used.

Flick - This is essentially the same thing as picking, but a different tool is used. The tool used here are either hand carders or special brushes known as flickers. Different tools have different uses and verbs.

Card - After your locks are picked or flicked they are run through a drum carder. This aligns the fleece's fibers in one direction. Doing this also removes all the fibers too short to spin. It is easier to spin wool that is all in one direction. Some people go straight to hand cards. It has the same effect, but for a large project a drum carder is better suited.

Comb - Combing is primarily for longer stapled fibers. Two combs are used to pull the long fibers from the short fibers while aligning them.

Diz - Dizzing is done after all of the fibers have been carded or combed. This pulls the fibers from the carder or hackle/comb in a uniform diameter. This creates a hand pulled roving, and is sometimes one of the most difficult. It takes a steady hand and lots of practice to create an even hand pulled roving.

I hope you learned something today, my fiber and non-fiber friends.
May your week be something fantastic!

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