SEs, Wraps and Transitional Twists Tutorial
Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 11:58 pm
Here's my method of making SEs, wraps and transitional twists with roving.
I use a spinning wheel to get the most quick and effective results (you can get old ones for cheap on ebay or in antique shops or whatever), but you can use your hands, or a drop spindle or something like a pen as shown here viewtopic.php?f=65&t=11016
We're making SEs here, so you'll need a piece of roving that's twice as long as you want the dread to be, and half as thick as you would usually use to get the thickness you want.
Loop the middle of the roving around a clamp and attach it to the orifice of the spinning wheel (or around your pen or whatever.)
Holding the ends firmly, twist the wool tightly in the OPPOSITE direction to the direction you want your wraps to go, without drafting the wool like you would if you were spinning yarn. Here the twist is right to left, so I have treadled clockwise. If you want to make plain SEs, you can unclip the wool now, poke the end through the loop at the top while maintaining the twist, and do your first wet felt on that. Then pull the end out of the loop and wet felt again.
With the base wool still twisted firmly, take the wool you want to wrap around the dread and for left to right twists leave a little bit hanging off the left side.
Wrap this little bit right to left around the top once, then under the long bit and keep wrapping right til the very end of the fibres. This keeps the wrapping in place.
Then wrap the long end around the dread from left to right. Try to keep this bit as flat as possible, and cover as much of the base as you want. For full wraps you want to cover all of it right down to the bottom of the dread. For twisted transitionals, make sure the wrap completely covers the base at the loop end of the dread, then when you want the transition to start, move the wraps further apart so you can see the base underneath. Make sure you wrap right down to the very end of the fibres of the wrapping wool as this keeps it in place.
Then you hold the end of the dread tightly and twist the whole lot firmly back in the direction of the wraps, here it's left to right, so I treadle anti-clockwise.
Remove the clamp from the dread and let it twist in half and it's ready for it's first wet felt. Then you straighten the dread out and wet felt again. If you've done twisted transitionals take special care to felt well over the transition to make it all smooth.
When they're all done you will probably need to open up the loops again, use a knitting needle or something else tapered til you get the hope the right size.
And there you are! Not too hard! It took me a while to figure it out, but with wool it's all about wrapping and using opposite twists to keep everything in place, because unlike synth you can't just twist the wool and felt, because all the twist will fall out of the dread and you end up with vertical stripes!
So anyway, you can do all sorts of fun things with this technique, and it's a good way of using up little scrappy bits of wool. Here's some other things I've done using this technique...
Hope that's helpful for everyone! If you have any questions just post a comment and ask
I use a spinning wheel to get the most quick and effective results (you can get old ones for cheap on ebay or in antique shops or whatever), but you can use your hands, or a drop spindle or something like a pen as shown here viewtopic.php?f=65&t=11016
We're making SEs here, so you'll need a piece of roving that's twice as long as you want the dread to be, and half as thick as you would usually use to get the thickness you want.
Loop the middle of the roving around a clamp and attach it to the orifice of the spinning wheel (or around your pen or whatever.)
Holding the ends firmly, twist the wool tightly in the OPPOSITE direction to the direction you want your wraps to go, without drafting the wool like you would if you were spinning yarn. Here the twist is right to left, so I have treadled clockwise. If you want to make plain SEs, you can unclip the wool now, poke the end through the loop at the top while maintaining the twist, and do your first wet felt on that. Then pull the end out of the loop and wet felt again.
With the base wool still twisted firmly, take the wool you want to wrap around the dread and for left to right twists leave a little bit hanging off the left side.
Wrap this little bit right to left around the top once, then under the long bit and keep wrapping right til the very end of the fibres. This keeps the wrapping in place.
Then wrap the long end around the dread from left to right. Try to keep this bit as flat as possible, and cover as much of the base as you want. For full wraps you want to cover all of it right down to the bottom of the dread. For twisted transitionals, make sure the wrap completely covers the base at the loop end of the dread, then when you want the transition to start, move the wraps further apart so you can see the base underneath. Make sure you wrap right down to the very end of the fibres of the wrapping wool as this keeps it in place.
Then you hold the end of the dread tightly and twist the whole lot firmly back in the direction of the wraps, here it's left to right, so I treadle anti-clockwise.
Remove the clamp from the dread and let it twist in half and it's ready for it's first wet felt. Then you straighten the dread out and wet felt again. If you've done twisted transitionals take special care to felt well over the transition to make it all smooth.
When they're all done you will probably need to open up the loops again, use a knitting needle or something else tapered til you get the hope the right size.
And there you are! Not too hard! It took me a while to figure it out, but with wool it's all about wrapping and using opposite twists to keep everything in place, because unlike synth you can't just twist the wool and felt, because all the twist will fall out of the dread and you end up with vertical stripes!
So anyway, you can do all sorts of fun things with this technique, and it's a good way of using up little scrappy bits of wool. Here's some other things I've done using this technique...
Hope that's helpful for everyone! If you have any questions just post a comment and ask