1640 South 600 East * Salt Lake City~ UT * 84105 * 801.668.0563
We have all my fibers gone.............
gone to landfills- everyone.....when will fibers ever learn.when will they ever learn????
Ok it isn't as cool sounding as Peter- Paul and Mary- but we tried!
but we know most of you were humming along!
We will try and explain the reasons - though we are baffled at times as to the large losses or lack there of.
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Having said that- we have seen :
- Wool will loose more in the washing process, due to the dirt and lanolin loss. The finer the fibers the greater the loss , as a general rule. We have seen up to 60% loss on Merino or Cormo fibers and as little as 15% on a lincoln fleece.
- One order where we washed 225 pounds of wool and the yield was 80 pounds.
WHY?? The fleece had lots and lot of red dirt and small vegitation matter in it. The wash tubs were filled with 1" of mud in each wash. These fleece required a lot of washing and a ton of tumbling. - Alpaca and llama will lose more in the carding process than washing. Alapca fleeces usually lose about 1/4 - 1/2 pound in the washing/carding process, no matter the size of the fleece. We have seen almost no loss with alpaca, but that is rare.
- Mohair will lose more in the carding prcess than all fibers. We do card mohair 2 times to make a nicer roving- but some people want the curly locks left in the roving. When that happens the loss is less.
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So what are you losing?
- little bits of VM
- 2nd cuts
- some broken and weak tips
- some shorter fibers
- some of the more slippery fibers in a blend
- fly away fibers like rabbit or dog
- more dirt that might have been trapped in the locks
- about 1/8 - to 1/4 of and ounce that cannot be roved - we need to let the carder run off so fibers do not contaminate each other.
this is tossed into a pile and we do use it.
It is combined with our fibers and dyed to create our Thrums roving-
if you notice on your returned bumps from Spinderella, the 1st bump will be thinner in the beggining (inside) and the last bump is thinner on the outside of the bump. we do try and get you all your fiber back.
We are often asked if the fiber under the carder is kept by us............. UM NO! Here are some photos of the fiber under the carder -
 Pulled out from underneath Ms Meriwether |
 VERY short fibers and VM |
 Piles of short fiber and VM |
 This was from a run of Alpaca leg and neck- see all the short pieces? |
We hope you can see from the above photos- this is not fiber you want in your roving and we don't either. It gets bagged and hulled to the landfill. We clean underneath the carder several times a day, depending on how much had fallen out. Some fibers do not lose anything but VM.
Often we are sent fibers that look like this and this will result in a VERY LARGE LOSS!!! Sometimes the fiber is just tossed and not processed or skirted at all.
Mohair  |
or this Alpaca  |
We are not able to process straw and veggie matter - so this has to be carefully picked out of the fiber and tossed. We are sure you understand.
The worst yield we ever saw with fiber like this was a 19 pound bag of wool that yielded 3.25 pounds! The charge for washing was on the 19
pounds. So this fiber cost alot and still had lots of VM in the roving.
Here is the roving close up- not something we would want to spin- but to each their own.
We hope these visuals have helped!
CONTACT:
Jim and Lynn Snell801.668.0563
1640 S. 600 E
SLC,UT 84105
email: spinderellas523@msn.com