# ROLAGS



## Alpaca Farmer (Jan 19, 2011)

What is the advantage of using rolags? I am not familiar with them and would like to know more about rolags: making them and using them. Thanks for your help.


----------



## deenashoemaker (Nov 9, 2014)

I like that they're an easy size to use. Also easy for me to make. However, I've never dyed rolags.


----------



## crivitz (Apr 12, 2015)

Rolags are made when you use your hand cards. They are best used for woolen spinning as they are spun from the center or the end, but either way are kind of raggedy. They make for fluffy, airy yarn. They are relatively small amounts of fiber so they are easy to handle. Personally I hate making them and I hate using them. But that's just me. I am sure I am outnumbered by those who love rolags.


----------



## mama879 (Jan 27, 2011)

A rolag prepared using handcarders.
A rolag (Scottish Gaelic: roileag) is a roll of fibre generally used to spin woollen yarn. A rolag is created by first carding the fibre, using handcards, and then by gently rolling the fibre off the cards. If properly prepared, a rolag will be uniform in width, distributing the fibres evenly. The word derives from the Scottish Gaelic word for a small roll.[1]

Animal fibres have traditionally been used to create rolags, but today's spinners use many different fibre materials, including manufactured and plant fibres.

In rolags the fibers are sort of horizontal (although they get jumbled up more when you spin). Spinning from a rolag makes a "woolen" yarn - the fibers go in all directions, and the yarn is very soft and warm but not very strong. When spinning from roving you get a "worsted" yarn - the fibers are all pointed in the same direction, and the yarn is very strong.

It's common nowadays for a lot of folks in the fiber world to use the word "roving" to rever to any unspun fiber. The thing is, this isn't really accurate and doesn't give a clear sense of what the preparation really is - and the preparation is relevant! So, here's a list of some of the preparations out there, and an explanation of terms (photos to come).

- a true top, a combed top for real, not just a commercial top, is the only thing from which you can spin a true traditional worsted yarn, in which all the fibers are parallel, smoothed down into the yarn with the air squeezed out of it, and no twist in the drafting zone. This prep is really best suited to true worsted spinning, but can be spun semi-worsted (using woolen technique).

- a commercial top is a machine-produced variant of this - sort of. The fibers are pretty much all going the same direction, but there's a ton more of them and it actually feels fairly different from spinning a true combed top. Once you're used to this prep, you can spin a pretty fair worsted, a pretty fair woolenish, and a range of things in between, from this prep.

- a rolag is what you make when you use hand cards in the traditional way - it's like a poofy roll of fiber. Traditionally, for woolen spinning, you use these, spin from one end, and you have your fibers going multiple directions and around and around, sort of. You could spin this with worsted technique, but it would be slow and you'd still get fuzzy yarn, not smooth yarn; but it would be stronger than a traditional woolen.

- a batt is made on a drum carder and is like a blanket of fibers, carded, but more aligned than you typically get in a rolag. You can strip these, pre-draft them, tear off chunks, roll them up, and spin them with what's considered either woolen or worsted technique; and you can pull them or tear them into rovings.

- a roving is a carded thing, sort of wrist-thick a lot of the time though it can vary; one way or another they're usually made from something that might as well be batts, either pulled off the carding equipment in roving form, or in some cases pulled later from a batt. On really big carders, the industrial ones that produce roving at small mills nowadays for example, the batts you'd get would be bedspread-sized, so you don't see those too often; instead you get roving.

- a sliver is a thinner variant of a roving (to simplify). Sliver doesn't have any twist to it at all, while roving has a tiny bit of twist (not spinning twist, but a slight twist to the entire rope). Sliver is what mills generally call their intermediate stage.

- pin-drafted roving has been carefully drafted through a series of pins, producing an open, lofty roving with a more aligned prep than is typical of other rovings.

- Puni - similar to a rolag. Prepared on handcarders, then the fibers are rolled on a stick and compressed by rolling this stick on a flat surface. Used a lot for cotton and other fine fibers. (thanks Glenna!)

In the European-derived spinning traditions, things are broken up into worsted and woolen yarns; worsteds are tightly spun, without air trapped between the fibers, and from combed prep with all the fibers parallel, producing a smoother, longer-wearing yarn. Woolens are produced from carded prep, using more hands-off techniques, so to speak, resulting in a more heterogeneous fiber alignment and air trapped in the yarn. Woolens are loftier, worsteds are denser. In these traditions, it is not possible to spin a true worsted unless you use both worsted prep, and worsted technique; same for woolen: you need woolen prep and woolen technique. However, these just define ends of a specific spinning spectrum (mmmm how alliterative!) and you can mix and match for results which traverse that spectrum. And of course, there are non-European textile traditions which don't exactly fit in that spectrum, though when they're being discussed by English-speakers they are often shoehorned in and those terms are used to describe things, as people don't necessarily have a familiarity with the other-language and other-culture terms and distinctions.


----------



## wordancer (May 4, 2011)

I make my rolags on a blending, big time fun!


----------



## Melody-Ann (Apr 11, 2017)

I love making rolags on my hand carders. I find I can spin finer threads with rolags over spinning from roving, or top. But that's just my opinion. Also, you can blend different fibers or colors of fibers together and then turn them into rolags. Look at some of wordancers past posts. She makes beautiful blends on her blending board!


----------



## mama879 (Jan 27, 2011)

I to love spinning from rolags. I make mine on my blending board to. This link is yarn I had spun from rolags.
http://www.knittingparadise.com/t-464714-1.html


----------



## Alpaca Farmer (Jan 19, 2011)

MAMA879, Thank you for the great explanation of rolags and other terms. I plan to print your post and refer to it. I have spun from batts and from rovings, and now see so much about rolags that I wanted to learn more. I have a carder, no blending board, no hand cards or combs. So, now to experiment.


----------



## Cdambro (Dec 30, 2013)

I make rolags on my blending board. I like how I can use different types of fiber and colors and mix them and blend them. The rolags are small enough to comfortably use and still have enough fiber to spin for a bit before I have rejoin. 

I have seen how after fiber is blended on a carder, it is taken off by making rolags so it seems to me, rolags can be pretty easily made no matter what tool we have.


----------



## sbeth53 (Mar 29, 2011)

I agree! As a novice spinner I really appreciate your terminology explainations :sm01:[
quote=Alpaca Farmer]MAMA879, Thank you for the great explanation of rolags and other terms. I plan to print your post and refer to it. I have spun from batts and from rovings, and now see so much about rolags that I wanted to learn more. I have a carder, no blending board, no hand cards or combs. So, now to experiment.[/quote]


----------



## mama879 (Jan 27, 2011)

Making rolags off the drum carder easy peasy;


----------



## onlywool'sdaughter (Oct 19, 2018)

mama879,

Thank you for this comprehensive post about various methods of carding and spinning. Excellent info about worsted vs. woolen spinning. More than one can learn in some books. All old and new spinners should read this at least twice. Thank you.


----------



## spinninggill (Apr 9, 2011)

crivitz said:


> Rolags are made when you use your hand cards. They are best used for woolen spinning as they are spun from the center or the end, but either way are kind of raggedy. They make for fluffy, airy yarn. They are relatively small amounts of fiber so they are easy to handle. Personally I hate making them and I hate using them. But that's just me. I am sure I am outnumbered by those who love rolags.


Yep, I feel the same way!


----------



## desireeross (Jun 2, 2013)

spinninggill said:


> Yep, I feel the same way!


I'm no fan of rolags either. Made the once and didn't enjoy spinning them


----------



## Reba1 (Feb 5, 2012)

I made rolags last summer in a blending board workshop at the Michigan Fiber Festival. I loved spinning from the rolag. I see a blending board in my future.


----------

