Fiber Terms Demystified: Tools

Now, we have talked about the tools we use in the previous installment featuring verbs. Here are a few pictures and captions titling the tools.

A Bench Picker from Fancy Kitty

An Ashford Flicker Brush

A Fancy Kitty Little Tom Drum Carder

Schacht Spindle Curved Hand Carders

Comb and Hackle Set from Blue Mountain Handcrafts

A Diz from the Woolery

These are all the tools that we talked about last time. My goal was to put names with "faces" for everyone.

Enjoy your week!!
<3

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!

<3

Fiber Terms Demystified

This is an installment for all my non-fiber arts friends and family. Now they will be able to quick reference some of what I'm saying. :) There will be three terms with a humorous, but informative response.

What do you mean by staples?

Staples are not the metal things you put in the stapler. Staple is the length of one hair from a fleece. For instance one of your hairs is considered a staple, although you cannot spin human hair.

You love crimp, but what is it?

Do you remember the lovely technique of burning your hair to make it wavy also known as a crimping? The waves made in your hair is no different than the natural waves in that of a sheep. The crimp is what makes wool easier to spin than any other fiber. The crimp holds the wool together to make strong yarn. It varies based on the breed of sheep.

 What is vm?

Vm is short for vegetable matter.  The sheep roam around and play in the grass, hay, and other plants. That matter gets trapped in the fleece, especially if the sheep are not wear coats. You have to clean all of this out of a fleece and lots of vm is a P.I.T.A., which means pain in the ass.

There are the terms for the week. I hope you had fun learning today!