The Rural Voice, 2005-07, Page 21h
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large drum to create hats for felting.
From the carder, the rovings go
through a machine called a draw
frame where the fibres are further
aligned by stretching and twisting,
.drawing the roving out to its final
size for making the yarn. The long
rovings are looped into large cans to
be transferred to the spinning
machine.
The small scale of the mini -mill
plant is demonstrated at the
spinner where the Lindenhof
mill has just eight spindles. Larger
spinning mills might have hundreds
or thousand of spindles. The smaller
size benefits producers of small lots
of fibre who wouldn't have enough
fibre for a large mill to be interested
in. "They can't handle small lots of
fibre," Angelika says. "They don't
like to change the size of their yarns.
This is manageable."
The spinner can produce from
single up to four -ply yarn depending
on the needs of the customer. The
yarn is gathered on spools.
The spools are taken to the skein
Felting table
allows creation of
felt saddle
blankets, insoles
winder for those who want to knit
with the wool. They can set a dial on
the machine to create the size of
skein the customerwants, such as a
IOOg skein. Weavers, on the other
hand, usually prefer to receive their
wool on cones.
The last piece of machinery in the
mill is the felting table. It uses those
baits created from the fibre gathered
on the drum of the carding machine.
Several layers of batts are laid out on
the table, depending on the desired
thickness of the end product. Often
the fibre of each layer is laid at right
angles to the one before.
The fibres are treated with hot.
soapy water, then the lid of the table
is lowered and clamped in place. The
lower table vibrates, causing friction
that creates the felt. The process
takes 30-40 minutes.
Felt might be used to create saddle
blankets up to one inch thick or
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JULY 2005 17