Tag Archives: Louett

Carding?

After waiting for almost 6 weeks, my Louett Drum carder finally arrived from Paradise Fibers. Actually, it was drop shipped from Louett in New Jersey.

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I love this new toy!  I have all these great ideas now on what kinds of fibers I want to blend together.

There are a couple of reasons to card. (either with a drum carder or hand cards)
Color:



  • If you are looking to blend colors to create a new color

  • to create a colorway with each color still retaining its original color but striped.
New Fiber Properties:



  •  have the final fiber take on the properties of both (i.e. blend wool with nylon to add stregnth)

  • Create an all together different texture than the original fibers.
Using a drum carder is much easier and faster than using hand cards and it also gives you many more options for blending since you have more control.

This was my first attempt at carding on my new Louett:

I took some Lama which I got at the 2006 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (Portia!) and blended it with Louett Chestnut Silk/Merino and some gold Angelina

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What is pictured here was not the same ratio carded.  I used 3 parts Lama to 1 part Wool/Silk and only a pinch of the gold Angelina.

I carded each fiber separately first, then recarded them together to create this batt

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My goal was to enhance the Lama’s ability to hold it’s shape by adding wool/silk and then to give it a little sparkle with the Angelina.

This is how it is spinning on my Golding:

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I really love the resulting color.  Of course now I need to card all the fiber up the same way so that my project will all be consistant, but this was just my first experiment.