An Affordable, Safe Tool Made in Uruguay.
The Uruguayan Wool Secretariat (SUL) offers workshops and courses on wool fibre and artisan weaving where participants practice various techniques, and receive information and guidance on how to purchase supplies, how to contact raw material vendors, and what equipment is needed for weavers to process wool.
Craftsmen and women often express concerns about the difficulties in obtaining essential working tools to efficiently develop their businesses and products.
Wool processing requires a series of very important stages that, depending on how they are carried out, will determine the final quality of the product.
These stages include harvesting the wool, washing, carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving.
One the stages mentioned above, the carding of wool fleece, can be done manually with brushes or combs, as well as mechanically with a carder.
Regarding this point, the SUL would like to use this article to showcase an initiative by designers Micaela Butin and Romina Lacoste: Carola, a carder that allows producers to improve and accelerate the process of preparing wool prior to spinning.
The Carola carder is an electric tool that assists in the parallelisation of wool or similar fibres, facilitating this task in the artisanal wool process.
With a motorised drum and a lower plate equipped with carding pins, Carola combs the virgin wool to prepare it for both spinning and felting, in a comfortable and safe way. The carding machine is intended for craftsmen, hobbyists, and anyone interested in processing virgin wool for their creations.
Carola’s characteristics make it a unique product: it can be used anywhere, it’s size makes it especially convenient, and it requires no manual effort for activation.
Using the Carola wool carder allows producers to considerably reduce the time and effort required to card wool.
Carded wool for market requires a costly industrial process that can also cause the material to lose some of its fundamental qualities. Carola allows producers to work the virgin wool and obtain carded wool at a fraction of the cost of industrial alternatives.
Carding, a Key Process for Wool.
In the artisan production process of wool, some stages are critical to achieving an optimal final product. The most important step is possibly the carding of the virgin wool, a fundamental process that adapts the fibres and prepares them for transformation into felted pieces or knitted garments.
Carding is the parallelisation of the wool fibres that must be carried out after washing them and prior to spinning or felting these fibres. This task is very difficult to perform manually, which is why special devices are often used for assistance. This is where Carola comes in, facilitating the task and reducing time spent on this laborious step.
Who Are We?
Carola is a product of Estudio B, a graphic and industrial design company established in 2019. We are Romina and Micaela, industrial designers graduated from The School of Design of the State University in 2016. We have been working on tools for the wool industry since 2013, having also written our theses on the topic. Born in the provinces of Soriano and Colonia respectively, we have always remained close to wool and its production system, having identified several of the critical problems facing the industry.
Contact details:
Web: cardadoracarola.com
E-Mail: hola@cardadoracarola.com
Source: SUL
Catherine Sochara – csochara@sul.org.uy
