Thank you for a great video. The one thing that people often get confused about is that true worsted is made from straight and parallet oriented fibers, yes. BUT the fibers are also supposed to all be ALIGNED in the same direction as far as cut end to tip. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how you are doing it but it is not a true worsted because the whole purpose of a worsted is a smooth tight yarn that wears like iron. You will get a tight spin on the way you are doing it but since the fiber scales are not all going in the same direction you will not get as strong a wear or as smooth a yarn. Many people get this confused so I thought I would let you know. Thank you again for a great video.
Very, very helpful and addressed a lot of technical questions. Thank you! There seems to be differences of definitions about fiber prep. Would be great to also contrast with hand carding, another confusing approach. I guess carding (hand or drum) preps for woolen and hand combing preps for worsted? I think this all takes doing. ❤
Hello! Glad you found some useful information. In the nutshell all combed fiber is worsted prep aka top,the fibers are aligned, and all carded fiber is woolen prep aka roving, the fibers are randomly aligned and make an airy, fluffy fiber.
Hi! Thank you so much! I’ve never processed any fleece (or wool!) before but by chance I’m going to get my hands on unprocessed alpaca fibre today. I don’t have cards but I do have combs (gotta love Christmas and a January birthday, LOL). Ever since receiving the news about the alpaca fibre I’ve been trawling RU-vid for advice. Almost all the videos show the fibre being carded, and this is the first one showing it being combed. I’m so relieved! Is there any additional advice you would give a newbie at processing alpaca fibre? The combs I have are fine, single row combs that can be screwed onto a table. I have a hairdryer that has a cold setting and mesh laundry bags, I could use those to blow out dust. I have tubs and strainers, and a laundry spinner so I could carefully soak it and rinse out dust. I even have a dehydrator that I can set on room temperature to potentially dry some samples a bit more quickly to do some testing. The owner of the alpacas is going to show me how to skirt, they have a skirting table and skirting racks, as they enter their prize animals into competitions. They were positively dizzy when they learned I’m a hand spinner and was interested in their fibre: there aren’t a lot of spinners around here (so far they know of just one besides me). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Greetings from Belgium’s countryside!
Wow! Belgium! Alpaca is the easiest fiber to scour. The secret is use a lot of water. Alpacas don’t have lanolin so the water temp is not critical( you are not melting lanolin), but they do have an oily, greasy build up from sebaceous glands( like when you don’t wash your hair for long time and it feels greasy) so you should use a quality soap. I use Unicorn power scour. I use hot tap water. Mine is 120 deg F. It is important to maintain the water temp from your scour to your rinse. I have several videos up on scouring alpaca. It’s one of my favorite fibers! You can comb any fiber. The difference between combing and carding is the alignment of the fibers. Combing aligns them, carding they are all different directions. If you go to my channel home page, select playlist. I have all my videos organized by category. Have fun! Let me know how it goes! I am on Instagram and Facebook @JKfiberarts. I recently scoured a prize winning alpaca fleece from Ireland and posted a finished knit project on IG. Spin happy!
@@jkfiberarts - Thank you SO MUCH! In an hour I’m heading over to the farm. You can be absolutely certain I’m going to check out those videos. I’ve got good quality soap, it’s the first thing I was worried about and I ordered some as soon as I learned I was potentially getting my hands on an alpaca blanket. It’s not power scour, but a German brand and going to be delivered tomorrow. Thank you, and happy spinning!
Hi, I enjoyed your video! My question is how to avoid the smaller carder on the drum carder from taking up fiber? I have a manual and go slow but is the smaller wheel to close to the big carder or what? Thanks so much!
The smaller drum is called the licker in. The distance between the drum and the licker in should be about the distance of a credit card. Usually they come set properly from the factory. If you’re having problems with the fiber sticking to the licker in, it’s likely you’re passing too much fiber at one time. slowing down cranking will not change that. you should pass a very small amount of fiber at a time. You should be able to almost see-through it. Have it fluffed up like a cloud. it also can depend on what fiber you’re trying to card. If it’s a very fine fiber, it usually will get stuck around the licker in. My drum carder is designed to handle fine fiber. It builds up on the licker in first and once it fills it transfers to the drum. The other common mistake is to hold the fiber with your hand. Once you feed it into the tray, don’t touch it or it will wrap around the liquor in. Hope that helps. Spin Happy!😃
I would card it. Combing creates top and which is when the fibers align. There is a lot of waste with combing. If you are using it for stuffing, carding makes it loftier, and there is very little waste.
@@jkfiberarts - This brings a question to mind: couldn’t it make sense to comb the fibre, and use the waste to stuff that cat bed and use the combed fibre for something else like spinning? And what other uses would you think of with the waste? Besides pet bed stuffing and dryer balls? Is the waste suitable for felting projects other than dryer balls? I’m asking because I’m getting my first ever unprocessed alpaca fleece today, never processed anything myself before. I have a cousin who felts and if waste is suitable for felting I’m thinking I might make her very happy with a surprise package of free alpaca fibre.
Usually the waste from carding fiber is all the garbage. Weak tips, the stuff that’s nappy. Also be vegetable matter in it. i’m not sure if you would want to use it to stuff a cat bed. I frequently use already prepped combs top and hackle blends. That waste I re-use in blends I make on my drum carder. I have some videos up about that as well. If there’s not too much vegetable matter in it, and it’s not all just broken tips, you could Drumcard it, and it will be fluffier and you could use it for stuffing. It also makes good garden fertilizer.
