Opening

Scouring removes the greasy lanolin coating the raw fiber.  However, to prepare the scoured fiber for the delicate wire teeth of the carder, it is necessary to open up the locks of the fleece into more separate fibers.  Opening breaks up clumps of fiber that would damage the carding cloth and enables the release of vegetable matter and the amazing amount of grit that is embedded in the fleece.  Our mill uses a machine called a picker to accomplish opening.  It is pictured here. 

Fiber is sorted again for contaminants as it is loaded on the infeed belt that carries it into a rotating drum with large spikes sticking out from it.  The picker exhausts a fluffy cloud of opened fiber into the picker room, which corrals the fiber and the dirt that it releases.  This fiber obviously made a trip through our dye pot before going to the picker.