"Fiber Activities Update...."

I watched a video on You Tube last week which inspired me to try my hand at once again using a "diz". Basically, it is a little instrument that allows one to pull carded fiber through a small hole directly from the drum carder, and turn it into a continuous piece of roving. I had tried it before and didn't have any luck with the process. As you can see in this photo, the "roving" is coming through the homemade diz (a milk bottle cap with a 3/16 hole drilled through it), but it is pretty thin.


Here is a close up view of what is happening. I worked at it some more and had more success with just pulling one round from the drum carder, which instead of a continuous rope of roving, gave me short sections of thicker roving, as you will see in the next photo.


My drum carded Bluefaced Leicester Sheep fiber, short sectioned rovings.


On the loom, I have finished weaving my first bath towel and have started the second one. Shown in this photo is the final hem of the 1st towel and the beginning hem of the 2nd towel, with white waste yarn in between. Each finished hem is woven 3 inches deep and will be rolled over to sew and will end up being a 1" hem. After seeing what 3" looks like, it seems like overkill, but not having done this before, it is all an experiment. The warp is a thinner material than the weft, so it may be just fine when completed. If not, we will just have "thick, heavy ended" towels. ;)


An overhead view of the weaving. As you can see, I've just begun weaving the 2nd hem.......


Future updates at some point...... ;)