Wool combs

Now I have a pair of wool combs to go with my hackle!

Home-made wool combs. The one on the left is unfinished. The one on the right is as good as it's going to get.

They weigh a pound each and are rather scary. Viking minicombs they ain't. But with the hackle clamped to the dining table (which incidentally is not doing it any good) you can use both hands if necessary to swing a comb. You need to be careful to avoid combing downwards because your knees are in that direction and you really don't want to comb your knees.

My first attempts at combing fleece looked like a real bird's nest, but by the fourth attempt they were starting to look like proper fleecy "nests" of roving. Not gossamer-fine yet, I found out that that's why you need the diz. Damn! I haven't got a diz. I have a broken Yale key though. (Thanks, son!) Broken Yale keys work very well as dizzes. After dizzing the roving is.....quite fine. (Must take photo). Fine and easy to spin. Mwahahahahaaaaa!

Feeling rather smug, proceeded to give husband a tutorial on short-draw spinning on my Ashford traditional. Husband was politely baffled. His spinning wheel is home-made (did you expect anything else?) and you spin directly onto the spindle, as on a Great Wheel. Scotch tensioning might as well be witchcraft as far as he is concerned.

Explained to husband that the best way for him to keep his loom (home-made rigid heddle, 32" wide) supplied with warp is for him to spin long wools, short draw, then cable-ply them. Husband gave me a Look, and explained he was fully occupied spinning weft (short wools, long draw) for the project that is currently on his loom (using commercial weft, which works very nicely thank you very much) and that he is not about to change sheep in midstream.