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Starting with an empty drum, I began a new batt
with my natural brown base color. I loaded about 0.6
ounces onto the carder, taking care to cover the drum as
evenly as possible. I did not burnish (compress the fibers)
at any step in this process to avoid packing the fibers too
tightly on the drum. Burnishing the fibers would cause
the same issue as loading too much fiber, making them
harder to remove with a diz.4
With the base layer in place, I slowly added one of
the half-batts on top of it. It is important during
this step to be sure this layer is spread thinly and that
the amount that is being pulled in by the first drum, the
licker-in, is consistent. I control this by resting my hand
on the half-batt as I gently feed it onto the drum.Pulling the Roving
At this point, I was ready to pull my roving. This
meant selecting a diz that was well suited to the job at
hand. I have been drawn to dizzes since I first began
blending fibers, but I have struggled to find one that I
love. I used a large concave two-hole button for a long
time before purchasing a gorgeous bird’s-eye maple
diz that turned out to be pretty ineffective because
the holes were too large, and it was not concave at all.
So I recently created my own diz design and began
producing them; my diz was a great fit for this project.5
I began the pulling process by separating about
an inch of the fiber with my doffer and threading
it into the hole I decided to use on my diz. How much
I was able to thread through the diz determined the
amount of fiber I separated.Troubleshooting
When I haven’t practiced pulling roving in a while,
I always struggle a little on the fi rst rotation of the
drum. I like to remind myself that no matter how
much the roving thins or breaks, it will all become
yarn anyway, but I still want to avoid these issues.
The main cause is usually that there isn’t enough
fi ber getting caught in the diz for one of two rea-
sons. The fi rst is that small bits of fi ber are stick-
ing in the drum; this can be solved by using a
doffer or small crochet hook to pull the fi ber out
and incorporate it back into the roving. The sec-
ond is that I may not have been moving my diz
far enough with each pull to continuously catch
more fi ber as I move along the drum.3
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