ClaireUK
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Disaster with spinning SuffolkI have spent all day trying to spin some suffolk fleece. I washed and carded it myself and am trying to spin it on my drop spindle.
It wont lie smoothly. Every length is lumpy and bumpy and its not me - honestly  . I switched to merino to see if it is my technique and that came out smooth and even.
This is my first experience of spinning with suffolk - any ideas about what I am doing wrong?
Thanks, Claire UK
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Spinning Fishwife
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Is the merino you`re using for comparison prepared in the same way ie carded?
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ClaireUK
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Yes, absoloutly identically prepared.
Claire UK
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cledry yarner
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Hmm - if you're using merino tops they'll have been combed - unless you prepared it yourself in which case I'll shut up 
Could you take some photos?
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ClaireUK
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These are merino rovings I bought from P & M Woolcraft. I assumed they were drum carded. My suffolk is hand carded.
Claire UK
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cledry yarner
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The merino is more than likely combed as it doesn't respond well to carding - too fine. It's very hard to get very smooth rovings when hand carding and not too easy when drum carded. There will always be little neps and bit of vegetable matter. My dorset rovings have been done by and industrial machine and they still have lumps and bumps in. I'm spinning some today and I have to pull bits off it as I go.
Is it really bad or just not what you expected? At least you know it's not you as you're managing the merino fine
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ClaireUK
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Thanks, I think I just blamed myself and got frustrated. I hadnt thought that different wool would spin differently. I am new to this and just thought it was me doing something wrong.
Thanks for pointing out that the merino is fine so it isnt my technique, just a different result. Its easy to get discouraged when starting out.
Claire UK
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Spinning Fishwife
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Hand carding fleece that you`ve washed from raw won`t give you the same results as the identical fleece run through a drum carder, or even less like the identical fleece that has been commercially prepared into rovings. Roving has all the fibres lying lengthwise. You can buy commerically prepared batts from drum carders, of course, but these are rarer. My bet was (which is why I asked the original question) that your merino was prepared in such a way that all the neps and short bits were combed out. So you can`t really compare the two directly. And of course, you`ll need to spin them in slightly different ways.
Different sheep breeds give very different sorts of wool, and need very different prep and spinning techniques sometimes. But that`s half the fun of learning to handspin! My advice is to try as many different sorts of fibre as possible, from raw to commercially prepared and everything inbetween. Don`t just restrict yourself to sheep fibre either. You`ll be amazed at how different they are, even fibres from two sheep of identical breed.
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cledry yarner
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Claire - it's definitely not your fault. We're all still learning about what wools do what and how they spin etc. Wool that you think you know can behave differently due to loads of things - the weather when the fleece was on the sheep is a main problem at the moment - loads of fleeces have suffered due to the extreme weather we've had this year. The only thing that's really changed for me now is that if a wool isn't spinning into what I planned it for I change my plans 
Re not realising that wools do different things, when we moved here I wanted to be a feltmaker and make felt from our own sheeps fleece. All well and good but I didn't know that not all wool will felt so we eneded up with a load of sheep which were no good to me. That's why I learnt to spin
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ClaireUK
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Thanks ladies
I've picked the suffolk really carefully, hand carded it twice as much as usual and picked out the 'nubbly' bits and now have half a spindle of quite nice yarn to use.
I would have given up yesterday without this encouragement - you are angels
Claire UK
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