Rolling?

[MrsEss]

Hey all,

I've started making some roving dreads & have came across some gaps in my technique.......i can roll the end to taper quite easily, but then if i palm roll the next section, the tapered bit starts going mad, rolling and kinking - i gues cos it's sticking out of my hand. i read on a website yesterday to wring out all the water & roll them (one wway) on a flat surface & to NOT use a towel as it takes out the excess water, making them harder to manipulate, but i thought if i wrang it out it would go a horrible shape & be harder to roll.

so, i've read Abz tut many, many times & used LPF's technique of twisting them while pulling them out of the water to stop creases - but only pull out a bit of the roving & "roll" it as much a poss before putting it onto a towel to get it all neat.

some other things i noticed: i think i may need a bigger bowl as parts seem to get stuck together while i the water, i dunk them, as they get loosened after a few goes.

the weight of the water has been a bit of of an issue - i've had one piece "break" as i've pulled it out the water.

the roving split on the bowl - i was gonna make some fattish ones & some skinner one, but the fatter bit of roving split as i was pulling it out of the water - SO the are all about pencil / sharpie thickness.

I've rolled once, i think i'll need to do them again. they all feeel quite solid too - do they relax after a while, or stay solid? i want squishy soft ones that are eay to manipulate.

&

How do i make candycanes/twists with roving??
phew - any ideas, comments etc would be greatly appreciated

*EDIT: - why are some people's roving dreads crinkly looking & others are straight???

[Miffy]

Maybe these photos can help you, they're part of the tutorial I posted on the old board, I'll see if I maybe can repost it here.





Pull the roving out of the water gently and push a little bit of the water off, but not too much. You want it wet and soapy while you're rolling it. Also, roll it very gently the first time, until you see it felt a little bit. Dunk the 'dread' into the water again and start rolling again, a little piece at the time. You can roll it both ways. I mostly felt it 3 to 4 times before I'm happy with the result. Don't get scared when your dread starts kinking everywhere. That's normal in the beginning.



This dread is rolled one time. You can see that it still isn't nice and straight nor very solid.

Just continue the process of wetting and rolling until you're happy with it.

[Ice_Pick_Abortions]

i never fund the method of taking a bit out at a time worked for me so i would just dunk the length that i was felting, leave it to soak for a bit and then lift the whole lot out of the basin. i would then lay it on a towel and roll from the middle out. if it started getting too dry then i would just pour some more water over the dread. i found the friction of the towel made it a lot easier for me to do and i could put more pressure into my rolling

[MrsEss]

cool!

Cheers guys - i'm gonna try both methods when i've got time to make some more.

Much appreciated

[Jane Doe]

EDIT: - why are some people's roving dreads crinkly looking & others are straight???

Many different reasons
It has to do with the properties of wool, and how it's treated.

Crinkled
- During the felting process, the individual fibers crinkle up.
- Similar to creating curly dreads, during the felting process you can shape them to have extra crinkle

Smooth
- During the felting process, the individual fibers crinkle up.
If you keep felting, they crinkle tighter and tighter together - resulting in very smooth dreads, but rock hard stiff dreads.
- If you don't felt enough they look smooth and kinda like actual hair. Similar to the original unfelted wool.
- Whatever stage of felting the wool is at, you can stretch each dread to make it smooth while it's still wet.

[VixenSingsBlack]

- Similar to creating curly dreads, during the felting process you can shape them to have extra crinkle

How would one go about shaping them to have extra crinkle? All the ones I've been practicing with keep coming out smooth, smooth and very well felted. I can tell they are very well felted because A they are stiff and spiky B they repel small amounts of water (I can run tap water over them momentarily and it beads off and falls away). I would like the option of making them look "wavy" or "crinkly," any help is appreciated.

PS I heard Leicester has an easier time being "crinkly." Is that true?

[nothingwhatsoever]

Two ways to create different crinkle...

One, loosely felt your dread... Then dunk it again, and squish it into a ball. Screw it up lots and lots. Then let it dry like that. This creates kind of a randomized crinkle.

Alternatively you can create a more uniform, kind of curly-looking crinkle by making a twist of the dread while it is wet (for double-enders mostly...) and letting it dry like that. It creates an effect like this:



you can see there is one green felted dread there that has been twisted in the second way.

i don't have any photos of the first one though, sorry! ^^ experiment though! And remember it does work better if you only felt the wool slightly before crinklizing. With the second method you can actually do it without felting the wool at all first, but it's a good idea to do the twist twice to felt it enough for it to stay dreaded.

[zeara]

Smooth
- During the felting process, the individual fibers crinkle up.
If you keep felting, they crinkle tighter and tighter together - resulting in very smooth dreads, but rock hard stiff dreads.
- If you don't felt enough they look smooth and kinda like actual hair. Similar to the original unfelted wool.
- Whatever stage of felting the wool is at, you can stretch each dread to make it smooth while it's still wet.

Im on my 4th felting of my set of 60 super long DEs and they are still really crinkly. If i get them wet and stretch them out they look smooth but by the time they have dried out they have crinkled up again. Any ideas on how to get them to stay smooth?

[VixenSingsBlack]

I think Jane Doe was implying that you must stretch as you felt. At the time, that's what I was doing. I'd cut an 8 inch long piece of wool roving, and it would wind up being 12 inches long by the end of my felting. So that's a 4 inch lengthening because I was stretching the wool AS I felted, thereby locking the fibers into that shape. If you're just wetting and pulling, it won't work because that won't lock the fibers. So

I guess stretch n felt, stretch n felt? Really I was doing my stretching by accident, basically holding down one end of the DE with my left hand, then rolling the rest of the dread with my right hand's palm very very hard, with a constant push away from my left hand.

[nothingwhatsoever]

certain types of wool will be crinkly forever - namely corriedale, and also blue faced leicester.

they just love to be crinkly and you can't really do anything about it!

[Squidgy]

I personally find that the method of seperating the wool as you pull out of the water just weakens the fibre... I too used to have a problem with the wool breaking due to the weight of the water.

I have found one of the best ways to combat this, as well as cracks and lines is to dry felt the wool in to a rough dread shape before wet rolling, this way the fibres are slightly moer fused and so stronger in the water therefore have less chance of breaking off... and less chance of fusing to other dreads when in the bowl ( i usually only have about 12 dreads at a time, les if long dreads) To help stop the cracks, when dry rolling i tug the material as I go so that if any cracks appear, they are pulled out and rolled..

I have found this to be the best method for me... hope it helps!!

[linziloop]

I personally find that the method of seperating the wool as you pull out of the water just weakens the fibre... I too used to have a problem with the wool breaking due to the weight of the water.

I have found one of the best ways to combat this, as well as cracks and lines is to dry felt the wool in to a rough dread shape before wet rolling, this way the fibres are slightly moer fused and so stronger in the water therefore have less chance of breaking off... and less chance of fusing to other dreads when in the bowl ( i usually only have about 12 dreads at a time, les if long dreads) To help stop the cracks, when dry rolling i tug the material as I go so that if any cracks appear, they are pulled out and rolled..

I have found this to be the best method for me... hope it helps!!

I dry roll my dreads first before dunking them as well. And i only pull a tiny bit out of the water at a time to roll between my hands. When i've felted it once with my hands, i dunk it back in. Then when i pull it out this time i roll it between my hand and the towel. Finally i hold one end of the dread, and starting with my hands close together getting further apart i roll the dread between my hand and the towel all the way along really quickly, pulling the dread through with my other hand, ensuring the dread is smooth all the way down. Hope that makes sense!
I might to a video tut actually....these things are so hard to explain with words!

[LethalxxxLorelei]

OMG MIFFY!

You gave me the idea of using that rubber mat and it makes things sssOOOOooo much easier! Thanks a billion!!!

[Miffy]

It's a bit late, but:

Although my method has changed a bit in the meantime (I've ditched the conventional soap and use the cheapest dishwashing liquid now), the anti-slip mat stays forever