#hand cards

[ezekiellsplayground]

Last step of processing the swedish helsinge lamb is carding the thel (inner coat) into fluffy rolags. I’m using my extra large hand carders made by Celestial Farms.

[milkweedman]

Started carding my shetland x clun forest. This is maybe 2/3 of the colors I've dyed (with foraged natural materials).

I was fine until the 8th one and then did one more and now I regret lol. Next time I'll try 7. Hoping not to injure myself or make my condition worse so that's why I'm taking it so slowly.

(In the past I would do 50 rolags in one afternoon pretty regularly. Well, no longer.)

[leiyahime]

Tried out my new hand cards today

I used some of the felting wool I got in my early spinning stages and don't really care about. So it's perfect for practise reasons!

I absolutely need to refine my technique so it doesn't put as much strain on my wrist. I don't think it's supposed to need this much force. But I'll get there. Hopefully

[bethama]

I just got back from three days at my mom’s house with no spinning wheel. I found assorted ways to cope.

[milkweedman]

My yarn and wool scraps bag is finally too full to fit anything else. So, time to turn it back into spinnable fibers.

It's a mix of handspun yarn ends, millspun yarn ends, rabbit fur (in this case from cutting a rabbit pelt), bits of wool, and other such things.

I'm gonna see how many rolags I can get out of all this. Also want to see the best (both in terms of ease and in terms of result) way to process yarn ends to make it be spinnable again. Will report back later.

[milkweedman]

8 more rolags done. Definitely shouldn't have done that last one. Having a lot of problems with my right wrist which is not ideal.

Really beautiful weather out here though. The first false spring so far this year xD.

Also, noticed this bag needs some mending. It's quite an old bag and some of my earliest handspun so I'm pretty pleased how long it lasted before needing repairs. Even now, it's a stable rip (not expanding as the stitches are semi felted into place) and pretty minor. I'll shore up the handles before bringing it out again though.

[milkweedman]

Hm. Well, I definitely did more than 9 (didn't have a chance to count but my guess is 13) but wasn't too much pain this time. Might be because my setup was a little better--I had the fiber bag hanging off my joystick and the cards on the bumper of the work truck I was sitting next to, whereas last time there was nowhere except the ground to put any of that stuff. Less bending definitely helps everything. Also on a hell of a lot of painkillers today. I probably shouldn't be at work, but my rule is, if I'm able to get out of bed, brush my teeth, feed my sourdough starter, and sit in my powerchair, I go to work. If I can't do all of those in the hour and a half between waking up and leaving to catch the bus, I don't go. Today I could, altho. Barely. There's gotta be some kind of better set up for brushing your teeth when you're in a wheelchair :/ right now I either stand (oh god) or sit in my chair but get water and toothpaste fucking everywhere.

Aaanyway. I think I'm gonna bring my cards and some wool to work more often. Much less mess.

No stream tonight BTW, hopefully Saturday

[milkweedman]

Knit this square yesterday, the yellow is that little skein of handspun hampshire that I dyed in the second round of exhaust. I got pretty far on an acrylic garter stitch scrap blanket à few years ago, before realizing I hate acrylic and have less than no use for a blanket made of the stuff. But man, the squares looked really nice. This blanket is stockinette because I intended to practice flat colorwork, but I wish I'd just done garter stitch. I love how it looks a lot more. Anyway... the gray is some Jacob scrap. I like both sides, not sure which will be face up when I sew it on. I need to block a ton of them atm, just don't really enjoy it. (That is another benefit of garter stitch squares).

Also the bread. Just finished its first rise. It's a blend of bread flour, whole wheat, and rye. The rye was accidental, I was looking for either spelt or more whole wheat but it wasnt labeled and light in the basement was off, so I grabbed rye accidentally, and... eh. Also has toasted Pecans. Idk, all my bread is 'what if I tossed a bunch of random stuff in a bowl while having very thick brain fog ?' But it usually tastes pretty good.

Also, 3 rolags down. I'm taking a long time with them trying to get all the vm out, but I think it's actually working really well. We'll see.