Fixing the "Puppies" Blend
I'm still reading that book on pasture. Notice how little else is getting done. I'm betting nobody else understands my fascination with that book -- certainly Pam doesn't. I guess you just have to be a nerdy (or geeky?) former scientist with grazing animals to be fascinated with the concept of growing more and better pasture.
A question has come up about how I let the different batts of the Puppies in the Wool Room blend end up different colors and what I'm going to do to fix the problem. I didn't get the opportunity to fix the problem today, but I'm happy to write about how I plan to do so.
There is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that I was getting really cold, I couldn't feel my fingers, and I probably wasn't paying attention.
The long answer is, well, longer. I plan to describe the blending process in greater detail in the future. Different fleeces card very differently. Some can be spun after the first pass through the carder. Others take as many as four or five passes. My normal approach is to card each fleece separately prior to starting to blend colors and textures.
With the "Puppies" blend, the fiber arrived pre-stirred. You may also recall that when I first started to card the blend, I discovered some of the fiber wasn't carding because it was still damp. Most of this damp fiber was the darker suri fiber.
Even dry, this darker suri fiber would have taken three passes through the drum carder to be spinnable. Wet, it just didn't card. The white and beige huacaya fiber in the mix, however, carded almost to completion on the first pass. Thus, when I picked up the fiber to finish carding, I had white batts with dark patches of suri fiber in them -- very much a calico appearance. I couldn’t tell that some of the dark patches contained a lot more fiber than others.
And, as I said, I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been because I was cold.
Thus, I picked up each batt, carded it two or three times until it felt ready to spin, then put it into the finished bag. It was only when I was finished that I noticed the differences in color.
To correct the color difference, I will tear a thin strip off each batt, and card those strips together to make a new batt. It will take one or two passes of doing this to achieve the desired color uniformity. What I try to do is to take equal amounts of fiber from the old batts and combine those to a single new batt. It's exactly the same process I go through when I'm doing large blends the usual way.
Marilyn got a look at the "Puppies" blend today -- it's her fiber and the culprits are her dogs. She is quite pleased and she likes how soft the blend is. I'm pleased that she likes what I have done with her fiber.
Fence progress: none since my last post.
On the Spinning Wheel: Pinero. Second bobbin is getting full.
On the Knitting Needles: A practice piece I'm avoiding.
On the Crochet Hooks: Nothing
On the Drum Carder: Puppies in the Wool Room Blend (and no dry weather forecast for a week)
On the Skirting Board: nothing.
On Deck: no change -- gray huacaya / black suri blend.
A question has come up about how I let the different batts of the Puppies in the Wool Room blend end up different colors and what I'm going to do to fix the problem. I didn't get the opportunity to fix the problem today, but I'm happy to write about how I plan to do so.
There is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that I was getting really cold, I couldn't feel my fingers, and I probably wasn't paying attention.
The long answer is, well, longer. I plan to describe the blending process in greater detail in the future. Different fleeces card very differently. Some can be spun after the first pass through the carder. Others take as many as four or five passes. My normal approach is to card each fleece separately prior to starting to blend colors and textures.
With the "Puppies" blend, the fiber arrived pre-stirred. You may also recall that when I first started to card the blend, I discovered some of the fiber wasn't carding because it was still damp. Most of this damp fiber was the darker suri fiber.
Even dry, this darker suri fiber would have taken three passes through the drum carder to be spinnable. Wet, it just didn't card. The white and beige huacaya fiber in the mix, however, carded almost to completion on the first pass. Thus, when I picked up the fiber to finish carding, I had white batts with dark patches of suri fiber in them -- very much a calico appearance. I couldn’t tell that some of the dark patches contained a lot more fiber than others.
And, as I said, I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been because I was cold.
Thus, I picked up each batt, carded it two or three times until it felt ready to spin, then put it into the finished bag. It was only when I was finished that I noticed the differences in color.
To correct the color difference, I will tear a thin strip off each batt, and card those strips together to make a new batt. It will take one or two passes of doing this to achieve the desired color uniformity. What I try to do is to take equal amounts of fiber from the old batts and combine those to a single new batt. It's exactly the same process I go through when I'm doing large blends the usual way.
Marilyn got a look at the "Puppies" blend today -- it's her fiber and the culprits are her dogs. She is quite pleased and she likes how soft the blend is. I'm pleased that she likes what I have done with her fiber.
Fence progress: none since my last post.
On the Spinning Wheel: Pinero. Second bobbin is getting full.
On the Knitting Needles: A practice piece I'm avoiding.
On the Crochet Hooks: Nothing
On the Drum Carder: Puppies in the Wool Room Blend (and no dry weather forecast for a week)
On the Skirting Board: nothing.
On Deck: no change -- gray huacaya / black suri blend.
posted by Upper Alpacas | 5:44 PM
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