I'm spinning the right way around now!

Yes, ladels and jellyspoons, there is a right way to spin and a wrong way to spin. I in my innocence, naturally span the spindle in an anticlockwise direction because it just felt easier.

This, it turns out, is WRONG!!!

The correct way round is to spin it in a clockwise direction (judged as you look down onto the spinning thing just before it crashes to the floor.)

Apparently it has something to do with how the scales lie on the fibres. Spinning one way will give a stronger thread, and the other will give a weaker thread.

I did the first few balls anticlockwise, but have decided to follow the advice of all the websites and spin clockwise. 

The problem here is that my hands keep automatically spinning the other way!

Know what happens if you spin a length one way and then switch direction without realising? The thread unwinds is what happens and then the spindle falls to the floor.

Anyhow,

back to the washing of the bats that I left unfinished the other day.

After considerable hunting I finally found a way that removes the yucky mucky tips without felting, and the resultant bat is soft and fluffy and ready to be carded.

1st step is to fill a small bowl with very hot water and a LOT of washing up liquid. (For those who may use different brands of ENglish, washing up liquid is what we Brits call the stuff that you squirt into a bowl of hot water in order to hand wash the dinner dishes.)

A box of bats

3 bats and a bowl of hot soapy water

Take a bat and dunk the cleaner end into the hot water. Pull it straight out and squeeze the water gently out with two fingers.

Dipping the bat

 Now, dip the mucky end, and then, holding the thing firmly by the clean end, lay it on a solid surface and brush out the the mucky bit using a cat slicker brush. (One of those pet brushes with very fine wire bristles.) The very soapy water makes foam between the fibres of the bat as you brush and prevents felting. Now lay the bats on something to dry.

Drying bats.

Here are those same bats all dry and fluffy and waiting to be turned into a rolag.

Nothing at all to do with this really, but this is my neighbour's cat, Beasal making free with my walking boot.

He really likes those laces.

To be continued