The Need For Self-Esteem.

The struggles with the SOS have left me feeling a bit on the "less than competent" side. To compensate, The Sheep will now share her mad blending skills and give her sad little ego a boost! Please note, though, that I am not a good student. Thus, I have taken neither classes nor advice on the subject of fiber related pursuits. I tend more towards just figgerin' it out as I go along. (nice attitude for a professional teacher, huh?) Thus, it is entirely possible that, at this moment, there is a spinning diva out there clutching her bosom in the throes of an incipient attack of the vapors as she reviews my methods. I apologize to said diva, but this is the strategy that works for The Sheep. Here goes:


I blend my fibers on my Louet Jr. drum carder using a top-loading method. Here we have a carded and dyed batt of Lincoln Long wool:





I pull off small amounts and lay it across the large drum and hold tightly. This puts quite a bit of tension on the fiber and untangles the "matting" that often occurs during the dying process.

Once I've laid down a thin base of the main fiber, I take a small amount of the metallic (copper, in this case) and crank that through. I alternate fiber and metallic until the drum is full.

I then remove the batt and separate it. Next, I pull small amounts from each batt at random and run that through the carder, again using the top loading method.

You can repeat this process as often as you like to achieve the desired effect, however twice through seemed enough for this Sheepie's attention span:

I use this method for blending most fibers. I find it works quite well with silk/wool blends as well. I know that other fiber-artists out there have their own methods of blending, but I like the speed at which I can work by using the drum carder. Besides...I wanted a drum carder. I needed to justify a drum carder. A drum carder can blend. Problem solved. I chose the Louet primarily for the price at the time, however it has proven to be a good choice. It's compact (being the Jr. and all) and speeds through fiber quite handily.

There, The Sheep now feels like she has shared a triumph as opposed to a trial for once in this blog! Back to your regularly scheduled tirades on naughty kitties, lack of sleep and SOS torture tomorrow!!!!!

SA