How to Card Cotton

Carding cotton is the first step toward turning it into useable products.

After cotton is harvested and taken off its bulb, it must be carded before it can be properly used. The fibers of raw cotton are knotted and unorganized. Carding smooths them out so that the cotton can be turned into other materials like thread, felt or yarn. Commercial manufacturers have large carding machines, but you can card cotton by hand for smaller sized or personal projects.

Things You'll Need

• Raw cotton
• 2 Cotton carders

Instructions

Carding Cotton

1. Hold one carder in your left hand with the teeth facing up.

2. Draw cotton fibers across the carder by draping it in a thin layer into the teeth from the handle end to the outer end. Do this until there is cotton all the way across the carder.

3. Hold the second carder in your right hand with the teeth facing down toward the left carder.

4. Pull the right carder across the left carder with gentle strokes so that you are brushing through the cotton. Begin by brushing halfway up the left carder, then brush three-quarters of the way up and end by brushing all the way across the left carder.

5. Brush all the way through the left carder 4 to 6 times.

6. Position the right carder so that it is above the left.

7. Place the handle edge of the right carder at the bottom of the left carder so that the stray cotton fibers in the first carder can be caught by the right carder.

8. Pull up the right carder so that it collects the rest of the fibers from the left carder.

9. Repeat these steps until the cotton is smooth and free of knots or kinks.

Removing Carded Cotton

1. Lay the full carder flat.

2. Place the outer edge of the empty carder against the outer edge of the full carder.

3. Gently pull up so that the cotton comes off the full carder.

References

• CottonSpinning.com: How to Make a Cotton Puni
• Cotton.org: How Cotton is Woven and Spun
• JoyofHandSpinning.com: How to Prepare Fiber with Hand Carders