A lesson in hand carding

These are my wonderful Schacht hand cards.  I'm not very good with them so my friend Eric (from spin night) offered to give me a lesson tomorrow after work.  Thanks, Eric!  (Hey, Eric, do you want to have dinner afterward at Shalimar?  Mmm, Indian food!)  I have a large plastic tub full of Cormo and since I don't spin a very even singles when I spin from the lock, I thought I'd try another method.  I've played with them a bit the last couple of days and the static is terrible.  It's possible I stink so badly with them because of the static.  The fiber flips around and clings to the backs of the cards and poofs all over the place on the front.  I've tried wiping the cards with a dryer sheet (a hint I got from a back issue of Spin-Off) but it didn't make a difference, although that may be because the dryer sheets are 6 years old.  (I don't use dryer sheets or fabric softener because I'm allergic to the perfumes and unpronouncable things they add to them... I should probably throw the darn things out, huh?)  Hopefully, it'll be a bit more humid tomorrow when I get my carding lesson.

Aside from the carding lesson, I don't really have any plans for the weekend, aside from finishing up a spindle box I'm making to trade for another Butterfly Girl spindle and some of her lovely batts, and playing with my hand cards, of course.  What fun things do you have planned for this weekend?

Oh, I almost forgot, I found out from Elizabeth today that she's going to SOAR, too.  Elizabeth and I have been commenting on each other blogs for a while now and I finally get to meet her.  I'm totally psyched about this.  I've made friends because of my blog but they all live too far away for us to actually meet.  Elizabeth will be the first of my blog-friends that I actually get to have a face-to-face conversation with.  If I wasn't thrilled about SOAR before, I certainly am now!

Comments

[elizabeth]

Squee! I'm totally psyched too!

Hey - about the Cormo - it's very easy to over process Cormo. I didn't know that until I started spinning some Cormo/silk that a friend got me at Rhinebeck and I was running into all these little neps. I read an article that I can't find now, but basically it said that since Cormo is such a fine fleece, to be careful while processing it that you don't overdo it, or you'll have neps.

That said, even with the neps, the uneven single I spun plied beautifully. I need to get back to it...

[keri]

How exciting! SOAR will be so much fun!

I'm interested to hear about your hand-carding lesson...I've actually never used hand cards.