Fun with the Drum Carder

I inherited a drum carder from a dear knitting and spinning friend last spring.

I've only just started playing with it.4

Remember that BFL/mohair blend I purchased that I was not happy with, because it wasn't blended enough? Well, I decided to see if I could correct that.

I went from:

[70/30 BFL/mohair blend, showing unblended mohair lock]

to this:

[blended batts of BFL/mohair]

I'm much happier with the amount of blending now. Also, the original roving was space-dyed (ie. stripey),  with two main colours: pink and gold - which I converted to a gradient thusly:

1. rip the roving into chunks so that each chunk was as much a single colour as possible, and then

2. run the strips through the drum carder to fluff them out; then,

3. follow the instructions in this video (it's in German, but I think you can get the gist pretty easily - turn off the voice and watch what she does, it's not hard to get) to create a gradient.

To spin from the batt, I did this. It's lovely fluffy stuff and drafts pretty easily, although I'm finding a few neps. The single is hairy rather than smooth (that's what you get with a longwool, in my experience) and as I'm spinning I'm hearing the wool tell me it wants to be a shawl rather than socks. We will see what comes of this!

I'm going to have to explore the drum carder more. I love how it can make gradients, and how I can make custom blends!