Day 19

I really should have been in bed an hour ago, but I've been too tired to sleep.  I hate that game.  Tonight's will truly be short because I'm going to try good old melatonin soon.

After letting all that wool dry, we had to card it.  We were lent cards by our teacher and our next homework assignment was to get it all carded and made into rolags so we could spin it.  We'd already been working with our drop spindles and a little bit with spinning wheels, but our teacher wanted us to learn the whole process from the beginning.  The class we spun our rolags (our third time, I think), I was stricken with some weird stomach bug and looked like death, along with vomiting every hour or so.  THAT was a fun class...I got to know the Heinselman's bathroom a little too well that night.  Anyway, during our second class and during the week before our third class, we carded wool and made it into rolags.

Wool before carding.  It's lumpy and you can still see plant matter in it.  In the third picture, you can see how I changed my hand position to make it more comfortable.  These cards were lovely to use, but it's still hard work.  My hands hurt when I was done.

Wool during carding.  You have to be careful not to load up the cards too much, or they won't work properly.  You can see on the towel some of the plant matter that's come out as I've carded.

Oooo!  Much less plant stuffs in this!  It's almost ready to roll up.  You kind of catch it with the other card, ease it off the teeth, and roll it up into a nice little bundle that's easy to spin.  You can buy roving, basically long strips of carded wool or fiber, that's been processed by a mill or by someone much more experienced than I, and spin from that too.

Finished rolag.  Not very pretty, but you can see the idea.  I got better as I went along.