Black and white

Paula Simmons from Pat Green Carders called to say that they test ran my carder last night and that it runs really well. They are now crating it up in preparation for shipping. I would have thought that she was using the cottage industry size carder, but she told me that she is only using the Supercard. When I first started looking for the larger carder, she recommended that I keep the Supercard. I am really glad that I listened to her. I can see that I will still be producing small batts for felting and it is good for sampling.

I spun several individual batts of different colors today using the same setting on my Little Gem.I am experimenting to see, if I can consistently spin the same amount of yardage from each batt and whether I can come up with a chart telling me which whorl size I should use, if I want to get a certain amount of yardage per ounce (disregarding the density of different fibers.) The batts are all the same size, since the carder can only hold so much fiber. The weights are varying, but I am coming up with 130-136 yards for each batt using one of the ratios on the whorl. Tomorrow I will repeat the experiment using a different whorl. I have been spinning long enough now, that I can look at a yarn and match it up fairly well.When I was spinning the 3,000 yards of Shetland, my yards per ounce varied by only 1-4 yards. Not bad, since I am not scientific about it! The above is a freeform yarn that I finished spinning yesterday. It has 181 yards and is mostly kid mohair from my white and black goats with some Merino blended in to give it additional texture. The bead combinations on my last two freeform yarns have taken on a new twist and I think that they are turning the yarns into elegant works of art. I am listing it on my website - assuming that I can get into my website browser. I am planning to shift to a new one soon. 1and1.com is just too slow and has to many users. No one going to my website will see a change - I will just be able to update quicker.

Below is a batt that combines all of the leftover pieces of batts from the freeform yarn. Amazing how much white is required to tone down the blacks.

The yarn on the bobbin.

The skeined yarn.It is designed to stretch the freeform yarn. It has 364 yards. There is a secodn silver one with 100 plus yards. I resisted th etemptation to coil them.