Fall 2019 • Spin Off 63
6
Pulling a roving can be tricky, even when you are
using a stationary tool such as a hackle, so it is
especially important when using a drumcarder to be
patient and work slowly until you achieve a rhythm. I
gave the fiber threaded through the diz a gentle pull
while simultaneously pushing the diz down until it
gently rested on the teeth of the carder. Pull, push, pull,
push, slowly making your way around the drum while
simultaneously moving gradually across it. With each
pull and push, you are catching just a tiny bit more
fiber as you move across the drum. For anyone who has
dizzed from a comb or hackle or even tried spinning
across a top, the concept and movements are similar.7
Once I pulled the entire blended batt into roving,
I wrapped it into a loose ball while putting a light
amount of twist in it for stability. Twist is inserted
naturally in the roving as your hand rotates around the
growing ball with each wrap. Like any technique, this
one takes practice.
I repeated these steps and created a second roving
right away using the other half of the striped half-batt.Designing My Ideal Diz
My creative passions lie in two media: fi ber and
metal. I appreciate and collect handmade tools
as useful keepsakes, and I have always want-
ed to fi nd a way to use my metalsmithing skills
to create tools of my own. In the past, I have ex-
perimented with various materials to create a
diz, but I was never fully satisfi ed with the re-
sults and how time-consuming creating them
was. Over the course of the last year, I have
worked to develop a diz that allows various siz-
es of roving to be pulled with ease, and that I
could make effi ciently and customize with vari-
ous colors.Although you can use nearly anything as a diz,
including a large-holed button, a milk-jug cap,
or even a washer, a specialized tool can often
give better and faster results. A good diz is con-
cave to funnel the fi ber toward the hole as it
is pulled through. Ideally it has more than one
hole size so you have multiple options in one
tool. With these characteristics in mind, I cre-
ated and cut my own dies for use on a hydrau-
lic press. These dies are capable of punching
out the overall shape from copper sheet met-
al, pushing the shape into a concave form, and
even puffi ng the three circular sites where the
holes will be punched.I hand fi nish each diz with one side powder
coated in layers of candy colors, speckles, and
sparkles, while the other is left as bare copper
with a light patina applied. The resulting diz is
lightweight and comfortable to hold while pull-
ing roving, and I get to play with color every
time I make a new one!Hand-cut silhouette dies for punching dizzes.The two-color marled roving.