I am experimenting on simplifying spinning the carding process as much as possible, so that eventually I may have a recipe, so to speak, to spin in the tweed style much like the Donegal mills spin that I love so much. Since my last big spinning project I have wanted to liberate myself from so many tedious steps, and so speeding up the process is what I’m after in “speed tweed” series.

This experiment starts with a very simple layered batt of a colored hand-dyed braid and one or two solids, then spun quickly to an aran weight single ply. I am working on my drum carder this time, however blending boards or even hand carders are going to be the same process, just on a smaller scale. The drum carder of course, now that I have one, offers the most fiber volume with fewer steps, a blending board a few more, and hand carders will take many.

I chose a multi-colored combed top braid from my small collection of indie dyer braids, and I admit, this is the most significant shortcut, for to take advantage of so many beautifully hand-dyed and multi-colored rovings available these days — so many — having the colors already blended is the biggest time-saver, and so very easy to find them too! I usually prefer subdued color, so for this experiment I have sandwiched the colored roving in-between two neutral solids.

Additionally, I plan to spin in a very simple time-saving way, in a short draw worsted technique. That is, working with the combed top, trying to keep the fibers aligned, then keeping the alignment of the wool as much as possible by splitting strips off of the batt — no rolags, no dizzing, no further prep, just loosely put into little nests to photograph them — okay, so now its time to lose myself in some spinning.

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Techy stuff for Speed Tweed #1:

• Fibers . . .
  • 1 part hand-dyed colored roving (100g multi-colored combed top braid from Jakira Farms)
  • 1 part solid roving (100g Wool Of The Andes Roving in Bare )
  • 1 part solid roving (100g Wool Of The Andes Roving in Mink Heather )
• I divided each color into thirds (approx 33g each) and layered on the carder as follows:
  • First layer = 33g layer in mink
  • Second layer = 33g layer in featured colored braid
  • Third layer = 33g layer in natural white.
  • Pull batt off, divide into 6 to 8 strips, and coil strips into little nests to spin. Repeat remaining two thirds.
• Approx 300g of wool to spin. 
• Notes for improvement: As I layered the whole 100g rovings in one layer, I had to run it through the carder again to homogenize enough to my liking. Next time I will apply the wool into the carder differently, refining my speed tweed technique!
• See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles