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New book on Blending boards to tempt you

New book on Blending boards to tempt you

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I am not sure how it got to be Thursday so quickly. It’s been a busy week since we last chatted. I was working on another post about demoing felting, but it needs more work, so that will be coming later.  This week at the local guild, we had a social focusing on Blending Boards. My Kia is partway through her gastric surgery (one of the parts of the new parts was missing from the box, so next week?)  The weeds are trying to outnumber the plants in the pots, so that has to be done; they are all looking limp from heat and lack of water, i have to fix that too.  The last part of the huge fleece is finally in for its first rinse. Just to add extra excitement, I am still wiping out and having long naps at odd moments. Life is fun!

Since you probably are not interested in the gastric distress of my car, and are likely trying to tackle your own weeds and lack of water (although it keeps raining?) So, this will be a short blog, so you can go enjoy the weeding and fleece washing while the snowbanks are not here.  Let me show you what turned up, besides blending boards and bags of bits of fibre, at the local guild on Monday.

Guild social with Blending boards

Removing one dowl from rolag0.11) Ann making rolags on the blending board, 2 more blending boards used in the background

removed last dowl and the rolag looks flopy0.12)- Ann’s rolag is flaccid!

some of the spinners at the social, 4of the 6 spinning are using drop spindles. One you can see the rolag she is working from0.13) 4 of the 6 spinners are using drop spindles

Daisy brought in her new book: “The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible: From Woolen to (Nearly!) Worsted and Everything in Between”,  by Deborah Held. Released April 2025,  it is hardcover and has 136 pages, in English.  (ISBN: ‎ 978-0811773676, if you wanted to look at it too)

cover of: The Spinner’s Blending board Bible, from wool to (nearly!) worsed and everything in between”,  by Deborah Held1.1)cover of: The Spinner’s Blending Board Bible, from wool to (nearly!) worsted and everything in between”,  by Deborah Held

This book was written for spinners, but felters may also be inspired by it. Anyone working with fibre has more options if they know more ways to prepare that fibre. Different fibre preps produce different kinds of yarn if you are spinning, and will behave differently if you are wet or dry felting. More options are always good. For felters, the fibre mixes that a blending board can create may inspire you. Probably a turbulent sea or impending stormy sky, even mixes of greens suggesting distant trees?

first 2 pages of table of contents1.2) first 2 pages of the Contents pages

chapters 3-6 plus appendices1.3) Chapters 3-6 plus appendices

Let’s have a look at the contents of the book to see if it sparks your interest. While I am writing this, Indigo (online) has an excerpt including the full list of contents (in case my new camera and I are still discussing visual acuity) https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-spinners-blending-board-bible-from-woolen-to-nearly-worsted-and-everything-in-between/c06b9a51-bd73-3adf-adf6-1d363cd16a3c.html

Here are the main topics covered (I have listed the contents of all of chapter 4, since it may be of greatest interest to felters):

Foreword

Introduction

1: YOUR BLENDING BOARD: THE ALL-IN-ONE FIBER-PROCESSING TOOL

  • Breaking Down the Blending Board
  • A Comparison of Tools Used in Fiber Preparation

2: INDUSTRY SECRETS: UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN POTENTIAL OF YOUR BLENDING BOARD

  • Aftermarket Accessories
  • Technique: Dos and Don’ts
  • Smooth vs. Textured Preparations
  • Working with “Difficult” Fibers

3: ROLLED-OFF PREPARATIONS: ROLAGS, ROLLED LOGS, PUNIS, AND ROLY-POLIES

  • Rolled-off Preparations, Defined
  • Rolling Fiber Off Your Blending Board
  • Color, Texture, and Other Creative Play

4: BATTS AND CLOUDS, ROVINGS AND SLIVERS

  • Batts
  • Better Batts
  • Make the Best Batts
  • Layer Your Fiber in Thin Staple Lengths, Burnishing Often
  • Remove the Batt from the Blending Board
  • Make It a Double
  • Make It More Woolen with Multiple and Directional Passes
  • Directional Loading
  • Recard Your Batt
  • Make It More Worsted
  • Carded Clouds
    • Make It the Most Woolen
  • Roving vs. Sliver
    • Pin-drafted Roving
  • Make Your Own Roving, Multiple Ways
  • Hand-pulled Rovings: from a Batt/Cloud or Roll-up, as a Z-strip
  • Diz a Roving or Sliver
  • Diz from the Board
  • Off the Batt or Roving
  • Double-diz
  • Make It More Worsted
  • Creative Play with Color and Texture
  • Flecks/Tweeds and Heathers
  • Garneting for Extra Texture
  • Make It a Marl by Stacking Your Batts
  • Stripes/Repeating Colors and Variegates
  • Color Blocking
  • Gradients
  • Vertical and Horizontal Gradients
  • Individually Carded Gradients
  • Scraptastic Sandwich Batts
  • Fractals
  • Fancy Farm Batt
  • Bizzed Datty Bumps

5: UNEXPECTED WAYS TO USE YOUR BLENDING BOARD

  • Bring a Braid of Fiber Back to Life
  • Flick-card Locks and Line Them Up for Spinning
  • Flick-comb Your Locks
  • Diz a Repeatable “Combed” Top
  • Wet Felting

6: CARE AND STORAGE OF YOUR BLENDING BOARD

  • Keep It Clean
  • Storage

Acknowledgments

Appendix A: DIY Blending Board

Appendix B: Comparison of Blending Boards Used in This Book

Resources and Credits

Glossary

I like that the book considers repeatable and totally unrepeatable ways to work with fibre.  While it’s fun to do artsy one-off things, it’s also nice to be able to get a predictable effect and repeat it if you want to. There are two tables I am particularly impressed with, one on types of fibre prep and what they produce (with pros and cons)(I want to meet this author!!). And the other on the Woolen to worsted continuum. It’s an elegant way of explaining vocabulary. Which is a problem when shopping for the prepared fibre, you want what you thought you were purchasing to arrive.  There are good photos of various ways to lay out colour to get different effects as well as photos that show how to use the equipment, including the diz.

Let me show you a few interior pages to see if I can tempt you to check it out further.

2.1--2.6) interior shots of the book to tempt you to go take a look at it.

As you can see from the list of contents and the photos, this book covers a lot of ground, not only in ways to make use of a blending board but also in the various fibre preparations and how they are different.  If your library or guild picks up this book, seek it out and take a perusal. Even if you never find a blending board at a garage sale or make your own, there is a lot of info here in case you do!

Back cover showing text and photos of rolags and dizing and photo of authors picture3)Back cover

Also, you can absorb the info presented and transfer that knowledge to a drum carder if you have one, or have access to use one.  You can lay fibre directly on the drum, diz off or make rolags. Even after a short-ish perusal and skimming, it has me thinking odd thoughts of trying things on my drum carder.  But first, I have to finish washing the last of that giant fleece. Just how big was that sheep? And what was he rolling around in? That water is filthy.

Oh no, a big storm is coming through in consecutive waves this evening, I guess the weather thought that fleece was very dirty too and is helping with the rinse!  I will hope the waves of the incoming storm don’t take out the power before I get this posted!!! (Ann may not be able to do the final spellcheck and find all the missing or extra capitals!)

Have fun! Stay dry, Enjoy Summer and Keep Felting!!

Working on my new blending board.

Working on my new blending board.

Comments 14 comments

I finally bought a blending board. I have wanted one for a while and was hoping for a second-hand one. One finally showed up, Yay! Patience pays off, well, it’s more being frugal(cheap) than being patient. I wanted one because rolags are my preferred preparation for spinning. I took it to the guild one day, along with a big bag of fibre some sari silk and some sparkle.

I started with some purply blue and lilac purple. I added some pink and purple sari silk. I think it’s called royal robes. I think I added some sparkle but not much. Here it is on the blending board. I added more of the blue-purple on top before rolling it off.

purple and pink fibres on a blending board

Here is what the rolag looks like

And here it is spun up as a single. I will wind it off and ply it.

Next was some red with yellow sari silk blend and some pink sparkle

This is the rolag

Next is some dark blue-green. It’s one of my favourites. I have some dye in this colour called mallard green. I don’t think that’s what World of Wool calls it though. I forgot to take a picture of it until I had taken one rolag off. I get 3 from the board per colourway. I was enjoying myself, hence forgetting to take a picture. It looks like I added some yellow and a different green. I am not sure I haven’t spun it yet.

At this point, I was having too much fun and I forgot to take any more pictures until the end. Here are the rolags all together

The light blue and the light purple are pretty close to being opposites. I just switched the base colours.

You saw the blue/purple and light purple above but I have also done the light blue light purple one. I am not very fussy about it when plyed. Partly, I think it is because “baby” shades are not colours I like much. This mix looks muddy to me.  I was trying to go outside my usual colours.

I am currently working on the opposite one. I like it well enough in the single, it is much less even on the colour split so I think it will be nicer when plyed.

I don’t know if I will do the red or green next. First I have to finish this one and do the plying.

 

Demo Last Weekend

Demo Last Weekend

Comments 11 comments

This last weekend my guild did a Demo at the Carp Fair I went on the Sunday.  I took a blending board to make some more rollags. I had some hand cards with me and I had a spindle I was spinning a rollag on so I could explain it all.  It was very popular with the visitors to the fair. .

Bernadette was spinning Rambouillet on her wheel. In this picture she is Chain plying it.

Jan was working On the Edo Challenge. And Yes that is an octopus. I am hoping to get her to do a post about her progress. Here she is explaining it to some visitors.

Her fish was there on display and tried to eat a passing child.

Julie was weaving. She is doing shibori on the loom. She weaves the draw strings right into the scarf ready to be tightened up and then dyed. She has a finished sample onto of her loom.

 

And lastly 2 of the display tables.

I didn’t get any of the third table except Jan’s Fish.  We had a great time chatting with people about spinning, weaving and felting.  Have you been doing your crafts in public lately?

 

Spinning mostly

Spinning mostly

Comments 22 comments

I haven’t been felting much lately, other than teaching, but I have been doing some spinning. I borrowed a friends blending board to try making some fancy rolags to spin from. I used 2 shades of orange, a purple wool, some silk and a tiny amount of  trylobal nylon on the board. It was my first time using the blending board so I was getting instructions and pointers from Judy.

I spun it on my new top whorl spindle. I don’t usually use a top whole spindle but I couldn’t resist this one from The Clay Sheep

Here I am spinning on it.

The yarn came out quite nice. I could have added more sparkle but I am always cautious of adding to much sparkle.  I wound it into a center pull ball the other night so now it is ready to be plied.

The other cool thing I got with my spindle was a hair stick. I asked her to make it as a special order.

Thanks To Jan Scott for the great pictures of me with the blending board and spinning. I think you took the hair stick pictures too even if it was on my phone.