How I used the diz to make roving from my drumcarder

One of my favourite things to do at the end of the year is to tidy up.  Not a full deep clean of the house, that's too daunting, but rather a good old tidy.  I sort through projects half finished, odds left over from previous adventures, and the general detritus that I collect around me.

While tidying up, I kept coming across odd batts and handfuls of fibre.  So I collected them up and blended them roughly on the drumcarder.  It seemed like a good excuse to try a technique I've been wondering about for some time now: Diz off the drumcarder.

A diz is a tool with little holes of varying size.  We choose one of the holes and pull the prepared fibre through the diz.  This is often used for combed fibre, but I was pleased with how well it worked for this project.  By pulling the fibre through the diz, we get a consistent roving (long snake) of fibre that we can spin from.  This is fantastic when you want to avoid making any unnecessary lumps in your yarn, but it is a lot of work, so it has its time and its place.

This is mostly wool, with a pinch of alpaca and llama,  most from my farm, or within a few miles of here.  Very local, very cool.  The colours are natural, as they came off the animal.

Because I didn't blend the colours very much, I have a fun striped roving to work with.  I spun it up in my standard sock yarn style, thin over twisty singles then chain plied for a round yarn.

It came to roughly 120 grams, and almost 300 yards.  I'm going to keep this yarn for myself, as I need some new socks.