Can I convert wool yarn to roves?

DianaU | Posted in Knitting and Crochet on July 8, 2005 03:17am

I knit bags and then felt them and I want to branch out to working with roves of wool. but since I have many ends and bits of wool I wonder if there is a way to turn them back into roves for felting flat or making balls?

Replies

carolfresia | Jul 08, 2005 04:44pm | #1
What an interesting question! I don't know the answer, but my gut says no. I think that once the yarn is spun, it's pretty much going to stick together. YOu might be able to brush it apart and fluff it up, but I don't think that will be the same as roving--and that seems kind of tedious to me. I wonder, though, if you couldn't use some of the yarn ends with roving, to add texture and color to your felted items?

Carol

dinahsilk | Sep 09, 2005 04:05am | #2
so i bought some natural color wool roving and hand dyed them with fiber reactive dyes. then felted them into small balls for pin cushions. I have been felted knitted bags for a while and now I am ready to tackle handdyed yarns into sheets of material to cut up and sew. It's a blast.

here is a photo of the pin cushions

Josefly | Sep 15, 2005 02:53am | #3
Beautiful! I don't understand at all how you made those pin cushions, but I'm going to go bac and read up on felting! Thanks for that great picture. Joan.

sewartist02 | Oct 18, 2005 04:23pm | #4
I spin wool and no you can't make spun yarn into roving. You can find roving on the internet via ebay or look for someone local who sells it. You can buy it online from websites that sell spinning wheels such as the Woolery (.com). It really isn't that expensive unless you buy blends or some of the pricier type wools. I love to spin and knit. I tried felting but it's not my thing although I have a friend who makes art from it. She is very talented. Word of warning: spinning and related activities is VERY addictive. :-)Patti

ranga | May 24, 2006 10:19pm | #5
You could do it but it's ridiculously time consuming. You have to pull the fibres apart as much as possible and then hand card them. I think the frustration value is way too high.
LadyDF85 | Mar 23, 2014 01:57pm | #6
You can convert roving wool back, because it's so loosely spun. I've done it, though it is pretty easy, it is a bit time consuming. Not so sure about other types of wool, though.