I have been doing a little spinning this weekend. This is some very pretty pencil roving that Natalie kindly sent me to play with. I have never used pencil roving before so at first I was having real difficulty in drafting as I was struggling with shaking out the slight twist. The little mantra that someone shared with me about drafting 'Hold the fibre like a baby bird' came back to me as I swung on the roving like a blackbird trying to remove a worm from the lawn.
A rethink was required so I decided to break the roving into metre long sections and split it down the middle, a process that if done slowly and carefully seemed to twiddle the twist out of the roving making it way easier to draft. I love the way it is spinning up. By dividing the roving lengthwise I am getting shorter colour changes which I rather like. Mind you, I'd be grateful if anyone has any other techniques for drafting pencil roving that they can share. Being a beginner spinner, one of the joys of being part of this blog is having so many experienced spinning brains (now there's an image to conjure with...) to pick!
3 comments:
I've never had any problems working from pencil roving, I've never really found it twisted before, so havent experienced this problem, sorry Jane, not much help!
Working with smaller portions makes sense. Spliting it probably made the overall spinning go quicker.
I've only dealt with a twisty pencil roving once. In that case I spent time gently coaxing out the twist by hand one ounce at a time. The chocolate pencil roving I recently spun had areas of slight felting which I think was a dye reaction since it was matted only in the light areas. That took more effort.
Maybe someone else has some good suggestions.
Your technique seems to be working out just fine! Your Fiery Singles look great!....and I love the drafting mantra analogy~~I once read a similar suggestion...the fiber should pass through your hands like running water....
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