Carders – Usually hand cards are referred to as simply carders. Two large area brushes similar to those used for dogs and have wire bristles. The fiber is run through the carders and this opens them, cleans them, and also aligns them for easy drafting.
Carding – This is the process of opening and using a carding technique for preparing fibers for spinning or felting. This can refer to hand cards, drum carders or even mechanically carded fibers and rovings and batts.
Drafting – The process of pulling on the fibers and feeding them from the drafting hand to the spinning hand. The drafting hand manages the fiber thickness and the spinning hand manages the twist.
Drop Spindle – This is a spindle that you hold in the air, and as you draft the fibers and spin the yarn, the spindle drops down and the yarn forms. You then wind on the yarn you made and repeat the process. There are high whorl or low whorl drop spindles.
Felt / Felting – The process of intertangling fibers by making layer of carded fibers and adding hot water and agitation or by using special felting needles. The end result is felt much like you would purchase in a craft store.
Fiber – Fiber refers to any type of thing that can be spun into a thread or yarn. It encompasses everything from horse hair to dryer lint. If it can be made into yarn, you can call it fiber.
Lanolin - The greasy, sticky coating on wool before it has been washed. Purified lanolin may be purchased to treat garments to keep them waterproof, or it is also good for chapped lips, dry skin and diaper rash.
Lazy Kate - Used to hold bobbins with singles so that they can be plied together on the spinning wheel or spindle.
Leader - A length of yarn that is attached to the bobbin, it is used as a starter yarn to spin new yarn by joining onto the leader.
Niddy Noddy - An interesting contraption that allows you to hand wind a skein of a specific yardage, usually 1, 1.5 or 2 yards. The finished skein can be counted for an accurate yardage of the finished skein.
Plied Yarns - When you spin a bobbin of fiber you have a single spun yarn. When this is spun again with a second third or more singles in the opposite direction the singles were first spun, it is a plied yarn. Plied yarns have less pilling and are also more durable, particularly for knitted garments.
Roving - A long strand of carded fiber that is a long rope of ready to spin fiber.
Scotch Tension - A wheel with one drive band that is attached to the flyer, and another tensioned band that goes over the other end of the bobbin. When the spinner moves their hands forward, the band causes the bobbin to stop spinning and the flyer winds they newly spun yarn around the bobbin. When tension is returned to the yarn in the spinners hands, the bobbin begins to spin at the same speed as the flyer.
Singles - One individual strand of spun yarn. These may be plied together or used as they are. These are sometimes referred to single ply yarn.
Staple Length - The length of a lock of wool from a fleece. Some long-wool breeds can have staple lengths of over 12 inches. Shetlands usually have a staple from 3-6 inches, while Merinos have a staple from 2 - four inches, depending on how often they are shorn.
Slubby Yarn - The lumpy bumpy slubby yarn that can be so lovely in projects, this yarn has a varied thickness and lends the finished fabric a unique look and feel. This is often similar to what a beginner spins, excepting that the beginner isn't usually trying to produce slubs.
Flyer - The U shaped housing for the bobbin, usually it has hooks on it for the yarn to feed through. This is what adds the twist to the yarn, and also causes it to be wound onto the bobbin.
I hope this clears up a little bit of what I'm talking about. I'll do a post about parts of the spinning wheel next. hopefully I'll convert some of you to spinners. :)
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