Carding

On the second day of the Glasgow School of Yarn event at The Mackintosh Church I captured Katie Weston from Hilltop Cloud working a Carding Machine.

Katie specializes in fibre blends and prepares her fibres at home in the hills of Mid-Wales. She sells carded batts, hand blended roving, and dyed fibre for spinners. She also sells spinning fibre from British breeds of sheep, and Drop Spindle Kits for people interested in learning to spin. Her speciality is subtle colour combinations, and beautiful fibre combinations featuring British wool that are easy to spin in to beautiful yarn.

The word Carding is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool. These ordered fibres can then be passed on to other processes that are specific to the desired end use of the fibre: Cotton, batting, felt, woollen or worsted yarn, etc. Carding can also be used to create blends of different fibres or different colours. When blending, the carding process combines the different fibres into a homogeneous mix. Commercial cards also have rollers and systems designed to remove some vegetable matter contaminants from the wool.

You learn something every day.