If you enjoy doing your own fiber preparation, but you find it hard on your hands or wrists, I may have a solution, and today I'm going to tell you all about it. Hello there, darling sheepspotter. Welcome to episode 126 of the Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love. This month, we're talking about fiber preparation, which is one of the eight pillars of skillful spinning. And in today's episode, I am going to review the Louette two-pitch mini combs.
So a zillion years ago, I think it was probably in 2010, which really does feel like a zillion years ago. But anyway, I bought a set of hand combs from Blue Mountain Handcrafts, which sadly is no longer in business, I think. They do still have a web page, but I've been checking it on a semi-regular basis, and they don't have an actual site. They just have a page. So I think they're not in business anymore, which is sad because I adore those combs.
I think they're the perfect size. Their teeth are just sharp enough. The handles fit my hand perfectly. And so when I found them, I tried a bunch of different combs. And I reviewed a lot of them on my old podcast, spin doctor. But when I found the Blue Mountain Handcrafts combs, I thought, okay, I've got my combs. I don't need any more combs. I have these combs. I love these combs. And I recommended those combs over the years to lots and lots of people because I think they're great.
But they're no longer available. And I wanted to find a readily available set of hand combs that I could recommend. And I should just say here that I have a set of the three pitch Valkyrie extra fine hand combs, but we've just never really gotten along very well because I don't enjoy using them.
They're really heavy and I'll have more to say about that in a minute but they're really heavy the teeth are in my view a lot sharper than they need to be and the handles are just they're not shaped at all they're just these kind of thick dowels and they they just don't feel comfortable in my hands so I didn't want to recommend the Valkyries if you have the Valkyries and they are working for you. I'm so happy. I'm just saying, they don't work for me and I couldn't really recommend them.
But they're very well made. If you have them and you like them, good. But I didn't want to recommend them to other people. So I've been intrigued by the Louette mini combs for many years, ever since Deb Roopson told me that she did all of the combing for the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook with the Louette mini combs, and that she swears by them. So earlier this month, I finally ordered a pair. And mine came from the Fiber Garden in Ontario. So shout out to John and Alan.
And if you are in Canada and you are a spinner, you should definitely know about the fiber garden because, uh, they, they do a ninja shipping thing. I don't, it's like they, the thing arrives before I've ordered it. I don't know how they do that, but, um, they're not that far away from me when I'm in Ontario. So maybe, maybe that's the magic, but, um, they are dealers for Majocraft, Ashford, Louette. And they have, you know, lots of fiber as well.
And they're just, they're just good people to know if you're a spinner in Canada. So mine came from the Fiber Garden. They were $228 Canadian. And in the U.S. they go for about $175 U.S. dollars. So let's get into my review of these combs. So first the basic stats. These combs are made in Holland. The handles are made of ash, and their total length is about five and a half inches, and the head of the combs where the teeth are is about three inches wide.
The teeth are two and a quarter inches long, and the width of the teeth is about 2.5 inches, and they come in a one-pitch version and a two-pitch version. I ordered the two-pitch version. Just for comparison, the Valkyries are six inches long and four inches wide, and their teeth are three inches long and set into an area that is three inches wide. So the Luets are scaled down from the Valkyries in every direction, but the really amazing thing about them is their weight.
So a single Louette mini comb weighs just three ounces, just over three ounces, or 89.5 grams. In comparison, the Valkyries weigh in at a whopping 8.6 ounces, or 244 grams. So they're more than two and a half times the weight of the Louettes. And, in fact, when I took the Louettes out of the box, I was just gobsmacked by how light they were. They're by far the lightest pair of handcombs that I've ever held. But what's it like to use them? I like the shape of the handles quite a lot.
They're flattened, and the sides have kind of a gentle curve to them. I found them very comfortable to hold. I think the sharpness of the tines is pretty much perfect. They are pointy enough that locks slide onto them easily, but they're not so pointy that you could easily injure yourself with them. Now, here's the rub, kind of. As with any fiber prep tool, you don't want to overload these combs.
And the length of the tines, which is just two and a quarter inches, really does limit the amount of fiber you can load onto them. So I was trying them out with a BFL fleece, and I found that I could put about three grams of fiber onto the comb. And more than that, and things would become unwieldy as the locks opened up during the combing process. So would I process an entire 10-pound fleece this way? Probably not. But for small amounts of fiber, I would absolutely turn to these combs.
So I was um, lashing fiber on to the, to the teeth until the teeth were about a third, um, full. Uh, and I wouldn't want to put any more, uh, fiber on than that. Uh, but I felt that they really performed very well when I didn't overload them and they really produced a lovely result. I will note that Louette does not make any kind of a clamping system for these combs, which would allow you to clamp it to something and then diz off the comb. So I just, and I rarely diz, I'm too lazy to diz.
So I just pulled the fiber off without a diz, and I was very happy with the samples that I spun from the fiber that I had prepped with these combs. After combing about, I don't know, about half an ounce of fiber, I maybe loaded them four or five times, I was also really impressed with the small amount of combing waste that I produced using these combs. So generally speaking, I, they, they work really well. I enjoy the way they feel in my hands.
And I think they do a good job. They do their job and they do it well. But I wanted to try one more test and that was spinning directly from the combs. So if you don't know about this technique or you've never done this, what you do is you load your combs and you comb your fiber. You make as many passes as you think is necessary to get it the way you want it. And then rather than pulling or dizzying the fiber off the combs, you just take the comb to your wheel and you spin directly off the comb.
And I love this technique. I love it for in several situations. One of the situations I love this technique is if I have a student who really, really has a death grip on her fiber supply, spinning from the combs is, can be just a way to shake that up a little bit. It can be useful for that reason. But I also also really like it if I'm trying to spin a yarn that's a lot finer than my default.
Or if I just want a very, very smooth worsted yarn, because the combs just, maintain the alignment of the fibers and make it easy to get a nice smooth yarn, and it just gives you a lot of control over your fiber supply. I found that the size of these combs made them pretty much perfect for spinning from. I could easily and comfortably hold the comb on the palm of my fiber supply hand and then draft with the other hand.
And I think these mini combs are now going to be my go-to for spinning from combs because my Blue Mountain Handcrafts cards combs, which are bigger, just don't, they're not as comfortable to spin from. But the Louettes are really, really perfect for that. So if you've got small hands or you've got injury prone wrists or hands, I think these combs could be a really good solution for you. If you enjoy spinning right off the combs, as I do, I definitely recommend them.
And all of this is provided, though, that you are also someone who is patient enough to prep your fiber a few grams at a time. I really found them to be a pleasure to use, And I can see myself on a snowy winter day in the studio, just combing a little fiber, spinning a little fiber, combing a little, spinning a little, and just having a very lovely and productive afternoon. And there are real ergonomic benefits to working that way because you're changing what you're doing with your hands.
So doing a little prep and then a little spinning can be a really nice way to work. So now i want to hear from you guys do you have wool combs that you use and you love i really want to hear about them um especially if they're valkyries tell me that you love your valkyries if you do uh there is a dedicated discussion thread in the flock where you can comment on this episode and discuss it with me and other listeners the link is in the show notes which you will find right inside your podcast app.
So just open up the description for this episode, click the link, and you'll be taken right to the thread if you are a member of the flock. If you're not a member, it will take you to a page where you can join the flock for free and join in the discussion. So, darling sheepspotter, that is it for me this week. Thank you so much for listening. As always, I really appreciate it.
I will be back next week with a review of the Clemis & Clemis Lock Pop, an innovative new fiber preparation tool, and you don't want to miss that. Until then, friend, consider spinning something. I promise it will improve your mood.