Puni & Craftiness or Bust Post

In the last post I said I would show you how to make a puni with a drum carder. In the event you are unfamiliar with what a 'puni or punis' is.... It is a hand carding preparation traditionally used with cotton fibers prior to spinning in which the cotton is rolled off the carder using 1-2 sticks to make a tube of fibers.

I use two large knitting needles and one of the drum carding herd (yep, I have a herd of carding tools:) to accomplish this with alpaca and wool. Sometimes I will spin directly from the puni, but for the larger part I prefer to pull it out into roving prior to spinning. My favorite thing about using punis is that you can really cut down on storage space for your batts as it compacts the fibers. Secondly, it helps the fibers come off the drum much more cleanly. And last but not least, you don't have to spin from the puni or pull it into roving. It is very simple to find the end of the batt and unroll it for big batt spinning.

Here are the steps laid out: And PS.... The fiber I am using is from Chris's alpaca so it is technically part of the Craft or Bust 2010;)

#1 After carding your batt stop here and go get your sticks or needles.

#2 Sandwich the batt between the needles like so.

#3 Start to roll the batt off the drum using the needles

Not really as step, but I wanted to show you how cleanly the batt comes off the drum.

#4 Before reaching the end of the batt drop your doffer on top of the tightly rolled puni. This helps to lay the fibers down and keep the puni in formation. Give it a few extra turns under the doffer. Don't worry if you do not have a doffer brush, here is what you do: Continue to roll the puni along the carding cloth surface after all the fiber has been picked up. Check it periodically to see if the roll is tight. Also note, you can do this for too long, so roll it just enough so that when you set the puni down it does not automatically want to unroll.

#5 See how tight. Now pull out the needles or sticks.

The end result.

Here I have pulled a bit of the puni into roving to show you.

This is not part of the puni demo. But, it is apart of my Craft or Bust Challenge. The three white balls on the Louet carder are more of the BFL from Sylvia's sheep now carded and ready to be spun. I have about one ounce on the wheel so far and these three weigh in a little bit over 4 ounces. I should be able to fill up my fiber hungry Louet S17's bobbin with a little room to spare;)