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Gig Harbor review - Drumcarding with Deb

I have nothing but respect for regular bloggers. Blogging is time consuming! Time that could be spent knitting little swatches:

Domino swatch from 6-color batts made into roving 2 ways: (bottom) z-stripped (top) rolled and pulled

But I am having so much fun with this, I must relate how it came about.

A week ago, my friend Kate and I took a class from Deb Menz, called "Drumcarding for multicolored yarns", at the Gig Harbor Winter Retreat. This was a whirlwind introduction to some of the techniques presented in her excellent book, Color in Spinning, which is finally back in print. She normally teaches this as a 2- or 3-day workshop, with a more structured progression of samples, but the 1-day version and the book were definitely enough to get me launched. She used to bring her own hand-dyed wool for the class, but this time was experimenting with using commercially dyed rovings. There was a selection of 40-50 colors, plus white, black and some grays for blending. This saved us the first step of carding each color you are going to use into an initial batt.

The first batt we made used six colors in an analogous range (in the same quarter of the color wheel): 2 thin layers and 4 long stripes. One thin layer of color is carded onto the entire drum surface. Then each long stripe is carded onto a narrow section of the width of the drum, overlapping slightly. Finally, another color can be put on as a thin layer across the full drum.

These two batts were made with the same 6 colors. One had dark green as a thin layer on one side, and a yellow on the other side, with the other shades as 4 long stripes. The second batt had thin layers of yellow and orange, with a different set as long stripes.

Two 6-color batts made from the same colors in slightly different arrangements

Once you have your multi-colored batt, there are two ways to make it into a spinnable roving: (1) roll and pull, and (2) Z-strip. Roll and pull is a bit harder to do, but the result is more uniform color throughout the roving. You roll it lengthwise around a dowel, then very patiently pull it out thinner and thinner into a roving. All the thin layers and all of the long stripes appear thoughout the length of the yarn, but the long stripes will be a little more concentrated than the thin layers. For Z-stripping, you tear the batt into narrow strips from one end to close to the end, then "turn the corner" and go back the other way. Then you pull the result out further into your roving. A z-striped roving will have the thin layer colors throughout its length, but each long stripe appears only once as a long repeat (more or less, it depends on how closely the width of your strips match the width of the long color stripes).

Z-stripping one of the 6-color batts

If you look at my domino swatch at the top of this post, the bottom row was knit left to right from the Z-stripped roving (spun into yarn) and the top row was knit right to left from the Rolled and Pulled roving (spun into yarn). She had us spin singles, as it preserves the color progressions better. Kate and I were a bit skeptical about how nice this yarn was going to be, but it is really quite nice - I may be a convert! If you do ply, use another color singles (as those of you in the Plying for Color class learned!). If you ply the same multicolored single with itself, it just muddies the colors.

Our next batt was 9 colors, using a split complement color scheme. We made 2 batts, one with thin layers and long stripes, and one with thin layers and the third technique, short stripes. Here is a shot of Deb demonstrating short stripes, in which the wool is applied directly to the drum and then carded in before applying the next, slightly overlapping color:

Deb Menz demonstrating the application of short stripes

Lots of color makes for a more interesting yarn, but to keep the colors clear, put no more than 6 colors in any single batt, and make stacked batts to be layered and pulled out together.

One thin layer and the layout for long stripes to be applied across the drum

The resulting 2 batts are layered on top of each other, and then made into roving using one of the 2 methods. Rolling and pulling can get pretty physical, but if you want a more uniform color throughout, it is the way to go! Note also that with color applied to the drum as short stripes, if you roll and pull then each short stripe shows up only once along the length of the yarn. With z-stripping, the short strips come and go more frequently.

Two batts, one with long stripes and one with short stripes, to be stacked and made into a single roving

Finally, Deb showed us how she spins a low-twist singles yarn, spun worsted or semi-worsted.

Spinning a low-twist singles yarn

The possibilities are endless, and somewhat mind-boggling. I was excited to realize I could continue to experiment using commercial dyed rovings, as I am not quite ready to take on the whole dyeing thing yet! And finally, I cannot recommend Deb Menz's book, Color in Spinning, highly enough.

Katie

Posted by at February 27, 2005 01:12 PM