[Ansteorra-Textiles] drum carder vs. hand carders

[Suzan Morang]

Greetings all,

Our group of novice spinners recently came into a wealth of raw,
relatively clean wool. We were very excited about this and all the
possibilities of future projects. However, after the initial excitement
has worn down, we are looking at each other and wondering how to prepare
this wool for spinning. As we do not own any hand carders or a drum
carder between all of us, we will have to purchase some. One of our
members has borrowed cotton hand carders to experiment on, but we don't
know how different cotton hand carders are from wool hand carders. We
also do not know the difference between drum carders and hand carders in
terms of time, finished product, overall value, etc., so I'm asking you
on this list to provide feedback if you have experience with any of
these tools. 

We are also thinking about sending some of the wool to a mill to be
processed into rovings. That seems like an attractive option to me, but
I'd be glad to hear if anyone has any positive or negative experiences
in this area. Any advice or opinions are welcome on what to do with lots
and lots of raw wool. 

Yelena
House Halfiras
Barony of Northkeep