New Fiber Frontier

Someone wise said, never say never, because you never know.

Two years ago I am pretty certain that I uttered anti-drum carder sentiments. A never was thrown in for good measure. 

Today, I eat those words with Splenda on top. There's a Clemes & Clemes drum carder in my house!

It's going to make carding the Cormo fleece so much easier. While there is still physical effort, drum carding doesn't hurt my shoulder and wrist the way that hand cards do. 

Firstly, I'll need to find out how to use this gadget. My first spin was with some really short Cormo. Not worth the effort. Tossed.

Then I tried a slightly longer staple, which worked out much better. The roving is still wolf-like though. I added some purple BFL to half and kept the other plain, then miserably chain plied each. Pictures of my chain plying are not fit for the Internet. 

Here is the wolf:

For a splash of color, I also put a couple handfuls of dyed Finn locks through. 

It produced quite a cheerful little batt. What I'll do in future is flick open some of the tight locks. They can create havoc and break your toys. 

Drum carding was truly fun. There is much to learn, but I'm going to put it away for a little while to catch up with other projects. Craft overload is threatening to overtake me.