Rolags and Rainbows

I sold one of my Blythe dolls a couple of weeks ago and with the money I bought hand carders. These let you brush the fiber to make it go the same direction and straighten and it allows you to mix up colors easily. Once the fiber is carded, I can then roll it up in to rolags!

Hand carders and fiber

One of the main reasons I wanted hand carders is that most fiber is sold in roving and I really, really like spinning from rolags. So, instead of limiting my selection to only rolags, I thought I'd make them myself! I'll still be spinning from roving but it's nice to have the option to turn it into rolags.

My current spinning project is from a grab bag of fiber from SpunRightRound. If you read tinysea, you may remember that we interviewed Renee way back in 2011.  She's one of my favorite indie dyers and has a great eye for color.  The grab bag was a mix of different kinds of wool and all kinds of crazy colors. In short, it's perfect for my color loving heart!

Before carding

After carding, as rolags

There was 4oz of fiber so I carded each ball of roving by itself and then tried to split the rolags evenly into two piles. I'm spinning 2 singles of 2oz each and then I'll be doing a 2-ply. I can't wait to see this yarn plied! The singles alone are coming out so pretty and so colorful! Based the weight of my singles, I think the finished yarn will be about DK weight but we'll see!

So many colors!!