Multiteasing

For some reason I’m working on sevaral spinning projects at the moment, and it has occurred to me that I have teased most of them differently. This week I’m multiteasing!

I always tease my wool before I card it, for several reasons. The most important reason to tease, though, is to open up the fibers to make carding easier on my body and on the fibers. I like the analogy of sanding a piece of rough wood – you wouldn’t go straight to the finest grain sand paper. Instead you would start with the roughest (picking the staples), then go to a medium (teasing) and end with the finest (carding). This way is more sustainable on both your body and the fibers. It also leaves less waste.

I use different methods of teasing for different purposes and different wools, and this week of multiteasing is no different. I’ll walk you through my current projects.

Hand teasing for the yum of it

I’m spinning an Icelandic weft singles yarn for a fulling project. I separated the tog and thel (outercoat and undercoat in Icelandic wool) with my hands, so the thel that remained was quite open already. I decided to tease the staples with my hands only. The reason for this was the way I planned to turn it into a textile. The weft yarn doesn’t have the same demands of durability as a warp yarn, and I figured it would be okay with the less thorough teasing I get from teasing by hand. Another reason was simply that I loved to get my hands in the fleece, sitting on the couch rather than clamp my combing station onto the table.

And it was indeed the loveliest teasing. There is something buttery about this Icelandic fleece, while at the same time it is a bit rustic. Since the staples had been opened a bit already through the separation of the coats, hand teasing was a very soft and light process.

The hand teased wool was easy to card and spin. The rolags were slightly more uneven than they would have if they had been teased with a tool, but in the context I didn’t mind.

Flicking away the kemp

I’m spinning a warp yarn for another weaving project, from a Gute fleece blended with recycled sari silk. Because of the kemp in the lower third of the staples I teased with a flicker. Most of the kemp stayed in the flicker and the flicked staple was silky and soft.

I have spun a similar yarn – a kempy Gute fleece that I blended with sari silk at the teasing stage. I teased with my combing station back then, and a lot of the short sari silk ended up in the combs, leaving more kemp in the teased wool. The flicker technique for my Current Gute fleece removed more of the kemp.

Combing station for production

I used the same Icelandic thel for another weft yarn, only bulkier. My romance with the hand teasing was over and I longed for a work horse – a combing station. Teasing the undercoat that had already been opened by the separation was a dream, as was the spinning.

I blended the teased wool with recycled sari silk at the carding stage here too. The carding was very smooth and I carded over 70 rolags in one afternoon.

Mini combs for short wool

I have a fleece from Doris the Gestrike sheep that is unusually fine for the breed. The staples are quite short, and while my go-to tool for teasing is the combing station, I was worried that teasing with the large two-pitched combs would result in more waste than necessary with such short fibers. Instead, I chose a pair of single pitch mini combs.

I got quite small amounts of waste with the mini combs and was happy with my choice. The short fibers arranged themselves into slim and sweet rolags that I spun into a fingering weight 2-ply yarn for a secret knitting project.

Combing station again

Doris’ friend Härvor, also a Gestrike sheep, grazes the same pasture and I took both of their fleeces with me after I had helped my friend Claudia on shearing day this fall. I decided to include Härvor in the secret project. After all, they were flock friends and would make a lovely combination in a project. Since Härvor’s staples were longer than Doris’, I decided to use my work horse again, the combing station.

Carding was a dream here too and the spinning smooth and joyful.

Joyful carding

In these five projects I have used different techniques in different contexts. But the aim has been the same for all of the yarns – to card even rolags in a way that is joyful for me and sustainable for my body and the fibers. To me, all the parts of the process from raw fleece to a finished yarn and textile need to be joyful. Creating a yarn is for me that whole process and not restricted to just the spinning part.

With the teasing I also open up the wool to let vegetation matter out – watching little pieces of moss, peat and seeds fall out help me come back to the wool as a gift from a living and grazing sheep. Having my hands in the wool through all the stages also help me learn about the characteristics of the wool and I become a better spinner through it.

If you think you don’t need to tease before you card, try carding one rolag with teased wool and one without, and see the difference. And do try different tools for teasing if you have them. Perhaps you find a favourite.

Happy spinning!

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