Since we have opted to cater to hand-spinners and other fiber artists, the carder is the final step and the workhorse of our milling operation. Drawing the fiber through 14 drums called infeed, workers, strippers, swift, fancy and doffer, it combs the fibers, aligning them in the same direction to prepare for spinning. At the end of the carder, the fiber is combed off the final drum, the “doffer”, in the form of a wide web. From there, it can be rolled onto a drum to form a batt that can be used in quilting and felting projects; or it can be drawn into roving, a loose “rope” of aligned fiber from which it is spun into yarn. The roving can be loosely bagged or rolled into a center-pull “bump” to make it more compact for storage and shipping.
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| Feeding the carder | Loose Roving | Rolling onto a bump |
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| A batt on the drum | Look at that! |