Spinning and Swatching like a demon

 What I really want  is a "gardening gansey". Something like a "rugby jersey" but in finely knit wool.  The fabric should be like sock fabric - elastic, durable, and able to handle moisture - cotton rugby jerseys fail at the moisture control criteria.

My old ganseys are really too warm for the current climate and resulting garden chores. (We no longer own an apple orchard in Northern Pennsylvania.) One gansey was knit to the criteria of defending me from thorns as I pruned roses in the winter rains.  In these dryer times we gave up roses. 

Anyway, in experimental spinning for weaving, I spun bins of yarn in the ~ 7 thousand ypp range. Some white, some blue. Swatching tells me that those singles as 3-ply yarn (~2,000 ypp)  make a nice sock yarn, which when knit on 1.5 mm needles make nice fabric, that I think would be good for walking socks or a gardening gansey.  In the past, I knit "boot socks" from 5-ply gansey yarn (1,000 ypp). I did not really think about finer sock fabrics - I was focused on the issue of "How warm can knit wool be?"

This is a major change in paradigm. As I get older, I am less likely to go up into the snowy Sierras and more likely to just walk up Mt. Brionies - a pleasant 2-hour walk if I take the short cut.   It is past time to recognize that there is less snow in the Sierras.  On the other hand, wool boot socks do still feel good on the cold tile kitchen floor on a winter's morning, when I come down to make breakfast. I have 75 pair of good wool boot socks - enough to keep my feet warm while I cook thousands of pots of steel cut oats. 

No, that 3-ply yarn will not be a durable as 4-ply from 11,200 ypp singles. However, that 3-ply  yarn by virtue of its coarser fiber will be more durable than commercial yarns such as  Special Blauban or BeeHive.  And I have those singles on hand and I can ply enough yarn for a gansey in a morning. (I knit swatches from the 4 samples the yarn I already made.)  I will not be off at sea - if a part of the gansey gets worn, I can reknit it.  I have more of those fibers, I can always spin more yarn to match.  And, a fabric knit from 2,000 ypp yarn is just right for Mt. Brionies in any season.

To get here, I had to stop thinking in terms of  modern patterns that use commercially available yarns.

I had to swatch until I found a combination of  yarn and needles that produced a fabric that was well suited to the intended purpose. I had to revert to Knitting in the Old Way as in the book by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson. (I do not sell anything these days, but I am honest about what works for me.) Knitting in the Old Way was the key that unlocked Gladys Thompson for me.  I think, the process of swatching yarn as spun and the processes in Knitting in the Old Way produce good sweaters. 

Mostly, ganseys are knit to fit. This makes them warmer for their weight, and it means less knitting - faster production.  Knit to fit, these firm fabrics need pattern stitches to provide extra ease for movement. Sure, you can just run vertical ribs from top to bottom, but that is more work, makes a heavier garment, and not as warm as panels of plain knitting. The Sheringham ganseys have moss and chevron patterns across the chest for extra ease. I also like some of the chest patterns in Mary Wright's, Cornish Guernseys & Knit-frocks. Many of Cornish patterns are similar to the Yorkshire patterns in Gladys Thompson. I expect they were knit for men doing the same kind of jobs in the same climates. 

I have said it before,  "A sweater is only a sweater, but a sweater with matching gloves, socks, hat and muffler is an outfit."  And, gloves, socks, hats and mufflers make very good swatches.  I tend to use Mary Thomas's Knitting Book as guidance on these objects, particularly gloves. Except for gloves, I tend to knit on longer needles.   For glove fingers, I often use shorter "sock needles".  There was a time when I had special very short glove needles, but now I knit everything with a knitting sheath, and all needles are at least 5" long, and mostly steel.  If I must knit soft gloves on big needles (e.g., US2) I use 6" wooden needles because they lighter, less slippery, and less likely to fall out when held by only a few stitches on one side of a finger. 

Like a good little demon, I did recently knit Froehlich Wolle Blauband and Paton's Beehive on the recommended US2 needles. I still hate that fabric. 3-ply,  2,100 ypp yarn knit on US2, is enough firmer to make a reasonable glove fabric - better than those damned, old worthless knit  Army mitten liners!

It is time for me to transition from spinning and knitting objects that prove how warm knit wool can be to spinning and knitting objects better suited to the modern climate. Yes, the finer 20s (11,200 ypp singles) are 40% slower to spin than the warmer 10s, (5,600 ypp singles) but I can still spin them at over 300 yards per hour.  I can still spin/ply a hank (500 yards) of 4-ply sock yarn in a day. 

There is a couple hundred pounds of fiber stash in the house, ranging from Lincoln to Rambouillet, with a lot of Cotswold and Romney in between. At some point, I have spun hanks from each of those bins as 20s, 30s, & 40s. I have spun 40s (22,400 ypp) from the Romney. There is a bunch of  Heinz 57 from the Woolery, and I have spun 54s (30,240 ypp) from that  (sorry, it is not a 57s grade fiber) and there is the Rambouillet from Anna Harvey (https://www.annagotwool.com/) from which I have spun hanks of 560 yards that weighed less than 6 grams e.g., ~ 45,000 ypp). (A small part of a large fleece. Other sections of the fleece spun at closer to 40,000 ypp.)  The real lesson of that evolution was that hanks of fine singles must be tied very carefully, or they will tangle. Alden never worked with such fine threads, so his advice on tying skeins of fine singles is - understated. Some of those skeins tangled, and I called them, "My little shits". From that, many spinners assumed that I could not spin fine. No, I could spin fine, but I had a learning curve on tying hanks of 45,000 ypp singles so they could be handled.

The fiber you have on hand can likely be spun in to 22,400 ypp singles or any lower grist. Finer fibers like Shetland can be spun into 30,000 ypp singles. Merino and Rambouillet can be spun into 40,000 ypp singles.  Mostly, the fiber is not the problem.  Any fiber you buy in a retail store selling spinning supplies can be spun into 22,400 ypp singles.

I think all the books on spinning for knitting, fail to properly discuss plying. Alden fails to talk about using a tension box to facilitate plying.  Great knitting yarns are spun rather fine, then plied to a useful grist. A tension box is essential for smooth, easy, consistent plying.  With a tension box, 5-ply or 10-ply yarns are  easy. Without a tension box, consistent plying is difficult.   With thicker singles (10s) I can ply from center-pull cakes. For sock yarn with finer singles, I ply from bobbins. I think all plied yarns need to be steam blocked.  Steam blocking results in a much better yarn (knitting or weaving). 

And when I buy commercial combed top or roving, I steam it prior to combing. Yes, I comb, diz, and plank and diz commercial combed top. The top is wound into birds nests, then carefully transferred to the distaff for spinning. Fiber that sits as bird nests for a few weeks gets recombed.  And, that is some how I spin finer than most hand spinners.  

The Faustian Bargins

A while back I bought a couple of lots of fine long wool, both from reputable high end dealers.

Both are "fiber porn"; beautiful, soft, lustrous, top -- that did not spin worth a dam. They were too expensive to discard, and I was not going to inflict them on another spinner.  With recent improvements in my spinning gear,  I thought I would give them another chance.

Previously, I had tried to spin them at ~20,000 ypp (20 tpi) and ~30,000 ypp (25 tpi), and had problems.   Lo and behold, with Irish Tension (single drive, bobbin lead), they are perfectly spinable at those grists, because with IT, one does not monitor inserted twist.  Now, I know they can be spun at 20k ypp and 30k ypp, but they want more twist, a lot more twist.   All that was needed to spin those fibers with DRS was to use a flyer whorl that delivered more twist. On the other hand it reminded me that not only does Differential Rotation Speed (DRS) drive higher rpms, but it also allows much faster drafting.  Over all, DRS is perhaps 5 times faster than IT or ST or DD (outside of  the DRS range for the single being spun).

So, DRS is a technology that works, but the social group of spinners do not like it, any more than the social group of knitters  like knitting sheaths and knitting belts. Using one of these technologies sets one aside from the respective group.  What will one give up for technology?  Goethe was referring to new technology, and I sacrifice belonging to the community because I use forgotten technologies.

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Fausthome.htm

Over all, looking at my yarns, the DRS technology allows me to produce a better product with less effort than IT or ST.  Using a knitting sheath allows me to make better and faster rewards for my time knitting. Better products at a lower cost lead to a rise in the standard of living.  That is what the Luddites were fighting against - a rise in their standard of living, they wanted the old way --  more work to make less, and lower quality product - which inevitably kept wages low.

My reward for my time spinning is the yarn. The community wants me to accept less, and lower quality yarn.  The community wants me to accept lower wagers, because they accept a romantic myth about the English hand spinning.

I accept that in doing this, the spinning and knitting communities lower their own wages/ rewards for their time spinning and knitting.  As  groups, they suffer  much more than I do.  My grandmother called it, "Cutting off your nose to spite your face!"

http://grammarist.com/usage/cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face/

Mechanics of DRS grist control

Let's say I want to spin  5,600 ypp worsted singles.  Such singles are competent with twist between ~5.3 tpi and 13.34 tpi, and I want to average ~9 tpi.

I put on my "10s" flyer whorl, and start spinning.  The first 1/8 of an inch of yarn on the bobbin will have a twist of  ~ 10 tpi.  The next quarter inch of yarn on the bobbin will have twist of ~ 9 tpi, and then the next 1/8 inch of single on the bobbin will have twist of ~ 8 tpi.  Now there is half an inch (300 yards) of single on the bobbin with a average twist of ~ 9 tpi. At that point, I flip the drive band over to the "20s" grove on the flyer whorl, and with the larger effective bobbin diameter, I am back to spinning at about, 11 tpi which tapers down to ~ 9 tpi as the bobbin fills.

Some drafting skill is required. If  I want consistent grist, then twist per inch (and firmness of the single) varies.  If I want consistent texture, then the grist varies a bit.  In either case  control is better than can be achieved with Scotch Tension or most modern DD  flyer/ bobbin assemblies. And, in either case the process can be ridiculously fast, so the fingers can stay busy.

If I want 20,000 ypp or thinner singles, I put the appropriate flyer whorl on, and start spinning.  In this case, I can spin a whole 560 yd/ 10 gram  hank, before the twist changes significantly.   Such hanks wound off on to 10-gram capacity,  plying bobbins will yield a 500 yard hank of  6-ply hoisery yarn with a grist of just over 3,000 ypp (7 m/g).   At 3,000 rpm one can spin such singles at 200 yards per hour, so a hank of such hoisery yarn is a couple days work, with bright eyed, nimble fingered younglings going much faster.  The Competitor is on the wheel right now, and with a fresh drive band is perfectly happy running at 400 yards per hour, so a hank of

Even 1,200 yards of  fine singles is only ~12 grams and does not change the effective bobbin diameter enough to significantly change the twist.  Thus, if one is spinning "fines"  (Merino or Rambouillet spun at its spin count, e.g., 40,000 ypp/ 30 tpi) , one can spin fast all morning without winding off.

Remember, With DRS, If you stop single from entering the orifice as is done with ST or modern DD wheels to accumulate twist, break off will be instantaneous.  You can draft faster than take-up, so that there is slack between the drafting triangle and the orifice, without a problem.  For example, this occurs when a thick region occurs in the proto-single and it has to be thinned out.  In this case the single MUST continue to feed into the orifice, or  it will break off.

Learning by doing

Bobbins from green wood

Spinners, knitters, and weavers, all use bobbins. When I first met AA, we talked about bobbin materials, and he laughed at my idea of making redwood bobbins, so I went back to making them from fruit woods and maple.  Royal Fibers sold me some black walnut (both green and well seasoned), so there was a long series of bobbins from black walnut.

Then, I got a source of  FREE, green redwood.  I made some redwood bobbins of various sizes and shapes  just for fun.

When I got my loom, I needed small bobbins that would fit on the AVL bobbin rack, so I went back to my source and got some more of their green 2" by 2" scrap, and started turning bobbins from green redwood.

There are about 72 of  them on the bobbin rack right now, and another 80, in various yarn bins, and another 20 or 30 in process in the shop.  I have made enough of them, that by trial and error, I found the skew chisel angle that works well with the soft redwood.  I do all the turning by eye. It is good practice.  I am down to about a 10% failure rate.  Mostly, the problem is turning the barrel too thin, so the barrel breaks during turning.   I know 2 or 3 ways to get it perfect every time,  (the barrels of my spinning bobbins are very precise.), but doing it by eye is very good practice and very fast.  If I go too deep, what do I have invested? - 3 or 4 minutes of my time!

Yes, I have a couple of hundred redwood storage bobbins that tell us that it is  perfectly possible to turn bobbins from green wood.  If I do them in batches of a dozen, when there are other things to do in the shop, each bobbin takes much less than 5 minutes.  (Working with green wood requires good clean up afterward !)  When I need more redwood, I call a local fencing contractor with their own mill.  Then, when they have a large job near me, I stop by in the afternoon and fill a tote or 2 from their on-site scrap pile.  The crew likes me, as it saves them the trouble of hauling it away.

Each little redwood bobbin holds about 100 yd (8 grams) of weft singles for the loom.  They also fit my Lazy Kate. Thus, 500 yards of 5-ply sport weight plied up from singles held on such bobbins requires the singles from 28 such bobbins.  The 5-ply "gansey" yarn for a sweater requires the singles from more than a hundred such bobbins. Therefore, I have moved to plying 5-ply, sport weight from cakes of singles that sit on the floor under my Lazy Kate; which then acts only as a tension box.

Finer, higher twist singles are less well behaved, and work better being plied from bobbins.

Thus, 6-ply, 1680 ypp, sock yarn is plied from 6 of  these bobbins to make the yarn (200 yd/ 48 gm)  for one sock.   These bobbins will hold a full hank (560 yards) of  Shetland or Suffolk spun at their spin count (~30,000 ypp, ~60 meters/ gram). Thus, these bobbins support plying hanks (500 yds) of  10-ply or 12-ply hoisery yarns ( e.g., 2,700 ypp ) from continuous singles.   And, these little redwood  bobbins will hold ~1,000 yards of  good Rambouillet spun at its spin count.

In my world, lots of little bobbins are a good thing.  These days, my Lazy Kate is configured to ply yarns up to 15-ply, and it is easily reconfigured to make yarns with more plies. 

Lazy Kate configured for sport weight 5-ply

back in the days of big maple bobbins.

Wound carefully, they will hold a full

hank of  10s.

Moving from bobbins to cakes was an incremental process.

The subject rough bobbins are suited for worsted spun singles at grists of less than 35,000 ypp.  For soft woolen spun or "fines" I give the bobbins 2 coats of Danish oil, and polish all yarn contact surfaces.  Bobbins of fines on the Lazy Kate also may need steel washers under them as bearings and oil on their axles. 

Quick and easy bobbin for fines, 

turned from green redwood.

Limits to DRS

I have been spinning about 7 years, and I converted my wheel to differential rotation speed (DRS) about 6 years ago.

As a DRS wheel, my traddy is likely nearing its maximum potential.

# 0 flyer (The Competition)

With its accelerator, it will insert twist at speeds approaching 5,000 rpm.  I do not think there is much room for improvement.  Ball bearings on the drive wheel and accelerator would reduce effort, but are not likely to allow much faster spinning.  While others are modifying e-spinners to DRS, I doubt if they will actually produce yarn any faster.


The other flyer/bobbin assembly is:

#1 flyer

(The Airplane)

With a range of flyer whorls for this flyer/bobbin assembly, I can spin yarns at desired twists between  about 9 tpi and 30 tpi.   For example 9 tpi yields a firm worsted single of  ~ 5,600 ypp and a medium woolen yarn of ~ 4,800 ypp - about the lowest grist yarn that I produce.  And, 26 tpi yields a worsted single at about the spin count ( ~75 meters/ gram) of the Rambouillet  that I get from Anne Harvey.   (The higher twist flyer/bobbin assemblies were set aside when I installed the accelerator.)  Compared to most modern spinners, I like thinner singles, and the yarns constructed from thinner singles, so this system produces the range of singles that I like.  The Competition runs noticeably faster, and is prefered for high twist singles.

On the other runway, The Airplane will produce a hank (560 yd) of 5,600 ypp singles in an hour. While it is actually slower than the #0 flyer, the Airplane is large enough to produce a full continuous hank of 5,600 ypp single, or 1,200 continuous yards of 11,200 ypp singles.  This allows plying 500 yards of 5-ply gansey yarn from continuous singles; and  allows plying  1,000 yard long skeins of  6-ply, 1680 ypp sock or "gansey" yarn from continuous singles.  

The Competition could produce continuous 1,200 yarn lengths of fine singles ( 30,000 ypp and finer, if I  just made another whorl for it. It is not a priory at this time.  

I do not need singles longer than 1120 yards, so I am not going to make the effort to get a larger DRS flyer. 

 Plying is done on a ST Ashford Jumbo flyer running at ~ 1,600 rpm.  It allows me to easily produce  500 yards of 5-ply sport weight or 250 yard skeins of 10-ply Aran yarn from continuous singles.  That is as close to "ART" yarn as I want to be.

There is a universe of different yarns out there. It is just a matter of  dreaming them, and sitting down in the morning's light to conjure them out of the chaos of a bin of fiber.  Commercial producers are constrained by the cost of twist, and perceived price points in the market.  As dreamers, we can consider durability, warmth,  luster, care, flammability, softness, color, grist, drape, hand, and other issues as we plan the yarns for our fabrics for our objects.  With an accelerator/DRS wheel,  the effort to spin fine singles becomes much less of a consideration.

 For a class of objects such as seaman's sweaters, there are still a galaxy of suitable yarns.  There is nothing sacred about worsted 5-ply.   If it is a voyage to the poles, 6-ply (840 ypp) or even 10-ply (500 ypp) may be better. If you are crossing the equator, then 3-ply (1,680 ypp)  may be better.  If the boat is leaving this week, then MacAusland's Heavy 3-ply is the faster knit. If I had to have such a fast knitting yarn tonight, I would spin it up on the Ashland Jumbo flyer without resorting to DRS.)

Why?  Because with a thick yarn and small bobbins, the change in the effective bobbin circumference and hence the rate of takeup increases so that the inserted twist is reduced below what is required for a yarn competence.  Likewise, plying changes the effective diameter changes rapidly.  Commercial  DRS systems use large bobbins, and  mechanical systems to continuously detect the effective diameter of the bobbin and change the rate of wind-on, so that twist insertion remains constant.  DRS for the hand spinner is much easier with fine singles and big bobbins.

If you really like thick singles, then DRS is not for you.  If you spin fat singles because thin singles seem like too much work, then you should know that DRS may be a path to fine and/ or very fine  singles.

And truly, there are good olives and bad olives.

This olive wood bobbin is perfect for fine singles 

on The Competition. 

Yarn Craft Council

http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/ is a marketing organization to sell yarn.

They set standards that help their members sell yarn craft products, and ensure the maximum profit on those products. They are good at marketing.  They know how to tell you myths you believe. They teach you myths that are impervious to facts. I do weatherproof knitting, but many knitters prefer factproof knitting.

Twist in yarn is very expensive to insert. Energy to insert twist is the largest single cost of a yarn mill.  Low twist yarns are therefore cheaper to produce, and more profitable.

Low twist yarns are less durable, so objects knit from low twist yarns do not last as long, and must be replaced.  Thus, selling low twist yarns can help the mills sell more yarn.  Since the yarns are less durable, the mills add nylon to sock yarns.  Nylon is cheaper than wool, so the mills save productions cost.  However, the nylon appears to improve the durability of yarn, so the mill can charge a premium for adding nylon. In truth, the nylon fibers are slippery and allow the wool to slip out of the yarn under abrasion, leaving the nylon and making it appear that nylon improves durability.  It is brilliant marketing.

When I spin hoisery singles from long wool (22,400 ypp, 17 tpi), and ply them up into a 9-ply sock yarn, the resulting yarn is held together by some 170 tpi, and is very durable.   The 6-ply,  1, 640 ypp sock yarn that I make is held together by almost 90 tpi and is more durable than the commercial sock yarn, but does not endure like a true hoisery yarn.The  3-ply 1,640 ypp  commercial sock yarns (that are 25% nylon) held together by something less than 36 tpi, and tend to go thread bare.

However, hoisery yarn requires 170 total twists per inch.  A pair of socks for me takes ~1,000 yd (~ 200 gm) of yarn.  That will take the most of 4 days of spinning.  Ouch! I can spin 5-ply for a sweater in less than half that time. This is an all wool yarn that knits up into socks that endure.  In a LYS, such yarn would present sticker shock, and not sell -- because we have become accustomed to cheap socks that wear out quickly.  As long as we buy into their  "wear out quickly" concept of socks, the mills can sell a lot of  high-profit yarn.

Still, even the large effort to make good sock yarn is much less than the effort to knit another pair of socks.  That is the incremental effort to re-knit socks is much more than the additional cost of more durable yarn.  Or, over a period of years, it is less effort to just knit good socks or sweaters or . . . ..  And, this is the reason for worsted spun 5-ply.  Knit it once, and you are done for a long time.

Note that the YCC members do not make/sell the kind of multi-ply yarns commonly used to knit durable fabrics. Their goal is to sell you more yarn, not to sell you excellent yarn. 

And, fabrics that are firmly knit tend to be more durable. 

To promote the myth that all yarns wear out quickly, the Yarn Craft Council suggested yarn band content does not include information that helps estimate durability.  Durability indicators would include how much twist is in the singles or the fineness of the wool. Instead YCC suggests (in other materials) that fine wool (often Merino) is the best for all skin contact fabrics, including socks. I know that is a myth that most of my readers have accepted, will retain, no matter how many facts I lob at them.  However, look at how many fine lace objects were knit from Shetland lace yarns for ladies and even infants.  These objects were silken to the touch.  

The truth is that well graded, well combed, worsted spun yarns are smooth and comfortable against the skin. Suffolk is perhaps my favorite fleece for hoisery singles.  And, finer knitting can make the fabric much smoother, more silken.  I would describe some very finely knit  fabrics as "slick".  

These days, I knit 840 ypp 6-ply boot sock yarn on 2 mm needles. I knit 1,640 ypp, 6-ply sock yarn on 1.5 mm needles.  I am swatching the current generation of hand spun hoisery yarns on needles in the range of 1 to 1.3 mm looking for the fabric I like; something slick! 

The Truth

Feynman was famous for getting to the truth.  Like Feynman, I find that many "experts" get wound up in refinements that lead them into error.  Often these refinements are from problems with defining or bounding the system under study.

In modern hand spinning and knitting, the problem is often a failure to take enough measurements to establish a baseline. The result is pile of myth and misconceptions that constitute a set of lies. People accept the lies, and pass them around until the lies become accepted as the truth.  And, nobody stops to check the math.  I am tired of those lies.  I campaign for truth and accuracy in hand made textiles.  

I measure, and check all the math.  I get different answers from what circulate in craft circles.  I get the truth. However, everyone is so mired in the lies that few believe me.  That is not my problem.  My problem is to find the truth in a sea of mud.

The system is wool yarn.  I know the diameter of the wool staples. I can easily count the number of wool staples in the yarn's cross section.  I know the old "Spin Count" system - a  professional truth that is beyond doubt. I have a accurate gram scale and an accurate skeiner.  I know my grist as calculated from length and weight is the same as calculated by Spin Count. I have these measurements in dated contemporaneous log books that would be accepted as evidence by either US or English libel courts.  And, I can always take my wheel into court and spin a sample.  The grists that I spin are beyond dispute.

I have good clocks.  I measure how long it takes for me to spin a batch of yarn. I log my rate of spinning in contemporaneous log books that would be accepted as evidence by either US or English libel courts.  And, I can always take my wheel into court and spin a sample.  My rate of spinning is beyond dispute.

Ask a modern spinner how fine a particular single is and the term "fine as frog hair", may be invoked. That implies that the yarn is as fine as can be practically hand spun, which is generally a lie. It it the lie of diminished expectations.  Generally, singles described as "fine as frog hair" have a grist of less than 25,000 ypp. Even Alden Amos never got around to spinning much finer than 25,000 ypp.  However, traditionally professional hand spun singles were classed as "fine" only for grists of  33,600 ypp and higher.   Today, most modern hand spinners have never "seen" hand spun yarns finer than 25,000 ypp.  Oh, they walked past such yarns in the Louvre, Victoria and Albert,  St-Janshospitaal, Getty, and etc, but they never really saw the yarns as a standard for modern hand spinning.  Modern spinners assume that we can no longer spin that fine. That is very wrong.  It is "foolish".

I know the grists of the yarns that I knit with, and I know the diameter of the needles that  I use to knit. The combination of yarn grists and needle sizes that I use were common among fine expert knitters at one time. Now people look at these stitch gauges and do not believe them.  These combinations of yarn grists and needle sizes were used because they produce lovely fabrics.  Fabrics that were/are warm and durable. Fabrics that had/have wonderful drape and hand. These fine fabrics are not commonly hand knit these days.  Most modern knitters tend to knit looser. Modern knitters tend not to use knitting belts and knitting sheaths, which makes finer knitting easier and faster, much faster!  

One of the lies that I really hate is that one can knit very fine fabrics on big (US2) needles, just by knitting tighter.  No!, not even if you are  knitting so tight that the yarn is breaking in your hands.  And, fabrics knit with highly tensioned yarns do not have the nice hand and drape of fabrics knit at the same number of stitches per inch, but achieved by knitting more loosely with smaller needles.  

I really do not care how you spin or knit.  I do care that the crafts of fine hand spinning and fine hand knitting are preserved.  I care that someone does fine hand spinning and fine hand knitting.  I teach how wonderful yarns can be spun. I know that it is more effort than many amateurs are willing to expend.  That is not my problem.  My problem is to elucidate the tools, methods, and materials that allow the reasonable production of fine yarns and fine fabrics.

I have gone where most modern spinners have not. Even spinners like Alden Amos did not explore the speed of DRS to allow spinning finer singles. I had to balance  precariously on his shoulders to look beyond what AA did. And, he was a giant among spinners.  I have made a lot of mistakes, but as I go forward I find better solutions, and I report them. Whenever I find a different way, I test the new way against the best way that I knew previously, and then use whichever way proves better. Details matter. Often, one approach is better for a particular application, while another approach is better for other applications.  Likewise, one approach will be worse for a particular application. There is no best way, there are only better ways to do particular applications.  And, there is always a better way for every application. 

The problem is always finding the most appropriate way for this application with the budget, scope, and schedule available.

The truths:

• Higher grist singles are worth the effort, because finer singles lead to fabrics with nicer hand and drape. (Go into your "Needless Markup Department Store" and look at the grist of the yarns in the fabrics with nicer hand and nicer drape.)
• High grist singles are much easier to spin with higher speed flyer/bobbin assemblies. Higher speed (RPM) is most easily achieved with double drive set so there is little slip in the system.  Therefore, to achieve higher speed, differential rotation speed control must be built into the system or the single will simply break off.  
• DRS controlled flyer/bobbin systems will run 2 or 3 times faster than bobbin lead systems, flyer lead systems, or double drive systems that allow slippage. These days, RPM is easily measured with a digital tachometer or strobe system.  These are now available and inexpensive. There is no excuse for not understanding this issue.  As an old bicycle racer, my normal cadence is ~90, which yields ~3,200 RPM with the the AA #1 /flyer/bobbin assembly, and ~ 3,600 RPM with the AA #0 /flyer/bobbin assembly. None of Alden Amos' treadle wheels were every designed to go that fast.  Alden never expected me to run those flyer/bobbin assemblies faster than 2,000 RPM.  SG's wheels do not go that fast.
• To run at speeds of more than 3,000 RPM, wheels must be double treadle to spread the stress of the power delivery through the full rotation of the wheel. Drive belts must be designed to deliver more power, and if cotton or linen, must have belt dressing. And, belt dressing will build up on the flyer/bobbin assembly whorls.  Whorls should be board cut, despite the fact that the end grain accumulates belt dressing. Belt dressing accumulating in the whorls changes the DRS!  Drive belts must be dressed and whorls cleaned on a regular basis. Oiling is critical. Service the wheel every time you take a "bio-break".
• With a DRS controlled wheel, wool can be spun at its spin count. (http://store.msuextension.org/publications/AgandNaturalResources/MT198380AG.pdf )
• Fine wool can be easily spun at 10 or 20 or 30 hanks of 560 yards per pound rather quickly.   Almost any wool can be spun at 10 hanks per pound (5,600 ypp, 12.3 m/gram, e.g., 9 twists /inch) at about a hank per hour.  Fine wool can be spun into 45,000 ypp (~100 m/gm) singles at a rate of about a hank per day. Ten grams of 2-ply, 20,000 ypp yarn takes 3 long days to prepare. A hank of 80s single weighs just under 5.7 grams.  I call them "little shits" because of the difficulty I had in managing the first few hanks that I made.  Henry Clemes is developing a reel that makes managing such singles easier. 
• Fine singles need to be blocked.
• Quality of singles is highly dependent on quality of fiber preparation. 
• A good spinner can keep 2 or 3 good knitters busy.
• A good weaver can keep 2 or 3 good spinners busy.

• Finely knit fabrics, knit using fine yarns and fine needles have superior hand and drape. Such fabrics can be cool or very warm. 
•  Finely knit fabrics have superior durability. If you want socks that last, choose yarns with more plies or strands and finer needles. The finer spinning will affect the time to produce much less than the extra knitting effort resulting from using finer yarns.
• If you want warmer or more weatherproof fabrics, finer needles are the best path.
• Knitting belts are a great general purpose tool.  Knitting belts are to knitters, what pliers are to mechanics.
• Knitting sheaths are more specialized tools which allow knitting things that cannot be practically knit using circular needles or even DPN with a knitting belt. Knitting sheaths are to a knitter what a rachet and socket set, and an air impact wrench, and an electric impact driver are to a mechanic.  

The bottom line is that you may not understand how the Hutchinson 3G access technology in your cell phone works, but that does not mean that somebody at the phone company has fooled himself.  The fact that the technology works is proof that nobody was fooled.  DRS spinning technology has functioned perfectly for centuries. It works.  Knitting sheaths have functioned perfectly for centuries.  It works.  It is simply a matter that you may not have been paying close attention to each of these technologies.   

Comprehensive revision

I have Lyme Disease.  It crept up on me, starting circa 2005, and I did not realize how very disabled I was.

It dramatically affected my strength, endurance, vision, balance, and coordination.

Thus, circa 2011, as I set out to discover just how fast a professional hand spinner could spin in the era 1550 to 1750, I was significantly disabled.

 Now! after more than a year of intensive antibiotic treatment, I am better.   I am not well yet, but I am better. Today, I have more strength, endurance, and coordination than I had in 2011 and a great deal more than I had in say 2014.  Thus, today I do spin spin faster. Therefore, all of the timed spinning in previous posts is conservative.

One could expect a healthy, professional hand spinner with moderately good equipment to spin faster.

My current considered judgment is:

•  That a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel operated by a professional hand spinner should be able to produce 560 yards of worsted spun 5,600 ypp commercial grade warp yarn (10s) per hour, even if the spinner has substantial health issues.  Woolen spun yarns of about the same twist ( 9 TPI) can be spun faster. 
• That a a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel operated by a competent hand spinner can spin woolen or worsted yarns with ~ 20 wool staples in cross-section at a good commercial pace. Romney is easy to spin at more than 20,000 yards per pound, Shetland can be spun at more than 30,000 ypp, and  fine wools such as Merino or Rambouillet can be spun at more than 40,000 ypp.  Fine worsted singles can be reasonably spun at rates of more than 3 yards per minute. Thus, 20,000 ypp 2-ply worsted yarn can be prepared at an over-all rate of 60 yards per minute.
•  20,000 ypp 2-ply is finer than any American entry in the last longest thread competition.  A reasonable time budget to spin, and ply, 10 grams of 20,000 ypp 2-ply using  a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel is on the close order of  25 hours.
• Wool yarns of less than 20 fibers are either fragile or require excessive twist resulting in a unpleasant yarn. I stopped producing wool singles finer than ~ 50,000 ypp.  My goal is to spin better yarns, not finer yarns.

I thought that I needed to make a new spinning bobbin for the Aldan Amos #0 flyer that I was using for fine singles. Along the way, I was going to photograph and describe the DRS spinning bobbin production process. With my revived coordination, I find that a new bobbin is not necessary, so I am just going to post pictures of the spinning bobbins that currently fit the AA flyers.

The AA #0 flyer/bobbin as delivered :

 Single on bobbin is the test single spun by SG.

  AA bobbin detail (ends bored out, brass flange bearings inserted, wood rings glued in to cover brass bearings)

Detail of AA whorl

Flyer with the (2d generation) DRS bobbin/whorl by me:

Bobbin and whorl of  tropical hardwood with Delrin bearings (thanks to Henry Clemes).  The wood was a scrap picked up inexpensively at a Rockler promotion.

Flyer/bobbin disassembled

Ends of bobbin bored out to receive bearings

AA #1 Flyer bobbin with 3d generation - DRS bobbin and whorls

These 11 whorl diameters provide ability to spin woolen and worsted singles from ~3,000 ypp to more than 45,000 ypp. Note the difference between whorl diameters is small.

Bearings for this flyer/bobbin assembly are replacement bearings for skate boards.  Bearing wise, this is over kill as differential rotation is only ~50 rpm.  However, the center of the bearing fits AA's flyer shaft, and this saves me some effort. The skate board bearings are much better than what my local hardware store sells, and much cheaper than what the local bearing specialist charges.

Detail of borings to receive bearings

Detail of bobbin shaft inserted into board cut bobbin end/whorl

All in all, not particularly pretty, but wickedly effective. The oak in the #1 bobbin is recycled from our kitchen remodel. Since then, I have moved to turning ALL whorls from maple to get a more even texture around the whorl, and avoid belt dressing build up at the cross grain.

Storage bobbins to fit 0.25" spindle:

 Front,  Right to Left; board cut redwood ends on redwood barrel, 2x redwood turned from solid blank, blank

Back, Right to Left;  reels for blocking singles, 2x board cut maple ends/whorl on maple barrel, blank for maple barrel. 

Turning tools:

For 5,600 ypp singles, and 50 mm whorls, required accuracy of whorl diameter is about 0.5 mm.

For 40,000 ypp singles, required accuracy of whorl diameter is higher.  Thus, turn a little larger than needed and sand down to final required diameter.  (If your tools are really sharp, no sanding is required for appearance.)

Use HSS tools and keep them very sharp.  A good procedure is to grind to shape, and then hone.  For honing, I use 400 grit emery belts on the Sorby Pro, or a diamond hone.  Do not try to burnish HSS turning tools.

My OLD Bedan  is carbon steel, and it can be BURNISHED and is sometimes used to clean up where the ends meet the barrel. (But was not used on the current generation of spinning bobbins  : )

Burnished tool steel is sharp, but does not hold an edge 

as well as honed HSS.  

If you use a good hone, and get the angles correct, then HSS is as sharp as the very best burnished tool steel edge, but a HSS edge lasts 10 times longer.  Finishing whorls, I figure the edge on my HSS tools lasts 10 minutes, thus a burnished tool steel edge lasts for ~ one cut.  Turning redwood bobbins from solid blanks, I can do a dozen bobbins in a hour without honing the HSS skew chisel I use.  Using tool steel tools, I have to stop and sharpen frequently, and only get half as many bobbins made in an hour.

Rooting around at the bottom of the Rabbit Hole

At the end of the last episode, I was left wanting 4-ply, worsted spun, 2,500 ypp gansey yarn.

This morning, I rooted around in the stash for some fine long wool, oiled it, and carded a batt.

I put the 20s whorl on the wheel, and spun a bit, then did a wpi test - it came out to 26 wraps in 1/4 inch packed to refusal - which is ~104 wpi =>a grist of  ~11,000.  then I spent a couple of 90 minutes spinning a thousand yards of  11,000 ypp single winding off on to 4 bobbins.

I put the bobbins on the tension box and plied a few feet, and did a wpi test of the 4-ply - it came up 13 wraps in 1/4 inch or close to  50 wraps /inch => grist of  2,500 for the finished yarn. I plied about 200 yards of the yarn.

By lunch time, I was knitting my handspun replacement for Paton's 4-ply Beehive  on 1.25 mm  DPN.  Actually, the primary difference between it and the other worsted 20s that I have spun to make 6-strand 1650 ypp sock yarn is the fineness of  the wool.

For a "gansey", I think I would use the coarser 55 count wool, rather then the finer 60 count wool. The real question is whether the fabric from a 2,500 ypp yarn is worth the extra knitting effort.  I need to test some swatches.

Fractured History

Ok, you have this model of history - does it inform your spinning and make you a better spinner? Or it just interesting?  Or, does it hold you back and keep you from being a better spinner?

First, I see spinning as an inherently economic activity. They spun to make clothes for the family which was an economic benefit.  Or, they spun to make money by selling the yarn.

You may enjoy spinning, and you may like spinning the yarn to clothe your family, but if they need new clothes, it is a chore, not spinning for fun. You may enjoy the chore, but it is still work, with an economic benefit.  You are only spinning for fun if the yarn is never used for any useful purpose. (In my case, the useful purpose is working out a different spinning technology. Solving technical problems is what I do.  It is work.)

Thus, for the great majority of hand spinners living in the industrial centers of Europe, India, China, Africa, and the Americas, spinning was a job. And often the customer was a weaver that wanted thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hanks of fine yarn, all as consistent as possible.

Thus, from the very beginning, all of the spinning masters, owners, factors, and managers were looking for spinning equipment would allow them to spin faster and more consistently.  Certainly, this search was long underway in Italy in the 12th century.  Enter, DRS.  Then a room sized device used by a man and a boy for winding thrown silk.  Over the next couple of centuries, it was miniaturized to become a one person device for winding silk and then for spinning hemp and linen, and finally for the twist loving fine wools.

From the time of its development, DRS flyer/bobbin assemblies provided hand spinners with very high productivity, ability to spin very stable grists, and the ability to easily spin very fine.  Everywhere that it was available, DRS was the flyer/bobbin assembly of choice for professional hand spinners.  Think about it, if you are paid by the hank, and DRS will let you spin twice as much and get paid twice as much which kind of wheel are you going to choose?  If you are a factor and get paid a percentage of what all the spinners you work with are paid, then you will make twice as much if they use a DRS wheel.  Which wheel do you want them to use?  Economics tells us that DRS was the wheel that was used.

Alden Amos tells us that single drive, bobbin lead is the easiest flyer/bobbin assembly to design and fabricate.  He implies but does not state that DRS is far and away the hardest kind of flyer/bobbin assembly to fabricate. It is.

With the rise of yarn mills circa1800, not only were spinning skills lost, but spinning wheel making and repair skills were also lost.  By about 1820, subsistence spinners no longer had the skills to use a DRS wheel, and local craftsmen no longer had the skills to make or repair such wheels.  The concept of DRS was not lost.  All the textile equipment engineers knew about it.  All of the mill managers knew about it, but subsistence hand spinners had forgotten the technology.  And, the ladies of  Queen Victoria's court were not going to the mills for a lesson in old style spinning.

The technology did popup on some models of the Canadian Production Spinning wheel, which resulted in its reputation for being so fast. A CPW wheel I spun on had been "fixed" so the DRS no longer worked.  Thus, the wheel was slower than my Traddy that did have my implementation of DRS.  Good  photos of  other CPWs show them having been similarly fixed.  One wheel repairman who had fixed CPW said, "Fixing the wheel was easier than teaching them how to use it."

So, I look at modern yarns such as

 and I look at old yarns such as

And, I like the old yarns.  I want to spin like that! However, when you look at them up close, you see that none of the restoration yarns are as fine as the original.  When they were doing restoration, they did not know the right tools (they were influenced by the hand spinners at QV's court),  and they did not have the skills.

I am just now getting the tools right.  Now, I can start getting serious about developing some real skill.  But, history that tells me that DRS is the right tool for spinning fine, fast, and with great uniformity.

If one is going to spin like that, then one needs the right tools,  One needs the skills to fully utilize the tools.  Working with my wheel on a regular basis tells me that DRS makes spinning fine so much easier that nobody that has not tried it would believe it.  They do not know what they are missing.

DRS not only opens up spinning faster, it opens up spinning much finer, with much less effort.

On the other hand, setting up the wheel to spin the desired yarn is a matter of some skill.   It works in a factory environment, where an expert gets the wheel set up, and then the spinner can sit down and spin very fine and very fast, very easily.

The Lambtown Yarn Contest.

In America we have spinning contests called, "Longest Thread", but which have little to do with spinning fine or fast. In the past, the Lambtown longest thread contest was very much about spinning fine and fast.  Now, it is about who can spin wearing gloves, who can spin blind folded, who can spin the fastest given an unlimited amount of fiber, who can spin on other people's wheels, and who can spin "art yarn".  Nowhere in the contest are points given for spinning fine or well.

Real Longest thread contests are still held in other parts of the world such as

 ( http://www.bothwellspinin.com.au/ ) .  Look and see how American spinners place in such contests in recent years!  Under the leadership of Boss Cows such as Holin, American Spinners have distained technical merit.  As a result, the best American entry to the 2013 Spin-in was based on singles of 
~26,654 ypp.   Not a very good showing. (Sorry, when I should have been mailing my entry, I was passed out in a back alley in Bruges. )


"Spin count" has been a part of the British defined wool quality for hundreds of years. It is/and was the finest thread that a COMPETENT spinner could spin from that grade of wool.  The US is one of the world's largest producers of fine Rambouillet wool with spin counts near 80.  The US also produces Merino with similar spin counts.  Why doesn't the US have many, many hand spinners that can spin such wools at their spin count?  There are many such spinners in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. 


Why did the US not submit hundreds or more entries to the 2013 Bothwell that were at least 45,000 ypp? (Ok, or at least 99 entries, because I was in Bruges.)  I will tell you why.  Because Boss Cows in the American spinning community distain technical excellence.  They distain spinning fine.  They distain spinning fast.  They pretend it does not happen.  They pretend it cannot happen. 


As a result of years of such "leadership", American hand spinners are not as technically competent as spinners in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. 


In 2013, I was learning what I could spin.  Then, I started looking at how I could use that technical excellence in spinning to produce better yarns.  Today, I make better yarns suited to their purpose.  Holin pretends to  judge them from photos of the process.  The thing is, she spins to win yarn contests.  I spin one kind of yarn if I am entering it in a "yarn contest", but different kinds of yarn for knitting, and weaving.


Lambtown will be a yarn contest, so I will be spinning California Rambouillet at it's spin count -  about 45 thousand yards per pound.  Bring your linen tester.

Fluff

I have been spinning Anna Harvey's Rambouillet - it is beautiful fine white stuff. Unfortunately, I seem to have abused this part of this fleece, and it has some down in it that leaves slubs.  Ok, it looks like home spun, but once it is woven, milled, brushed and clipped, it will just be -  bright white, fine woolen cloth with a very soft nap.  And, I believe in judging the final object.


The drive bands on the wheel were old, and replacing both raised the rpm by 20% -- that is like working 5 days and getting paid for 6 days.  Nice!


This bunch of  rolags seems to want to hang together, so I have to pre-draft them.  Ultimately drafting is faster than take-up.  At flyer speeds of 3,000 rpm, take-up is something over 9 yards per minute.  If I draft a bit faster, a balloon forms around the flyer, and if it gets big enough it hits the MOA and tangles in the other flyer arm.  If the drafting is too slow, the yarn will break off. 


Using the Ott lamp as a strobe, I can see the balloon of yarn around the flyer and adjust my rate of drafting.  Between the balloon and yarn stretch, I can grab another rolag and continue spinning by just dropping rpm to 2,000 for a couple of seconds.


The woolen single is fairly bulky, so I spend a lot of time winding off.  I may need to rig a faster bobbin winder if the fresh singles will take the extra tension of  faster wind off.


Thus, I am embarrassed to admit that this morning's production of woolen 5,400 ypp singles is only just over 400 yards per hour.  I think that when I get past this bag of fleece, production speed will go back up.  On the other hand, it is kind of nice just lounging around at 9 yard per minute.


If Holin wants to tell you that her "slow spun" yarn weaves up into better cloth, then she should be ready to show you pix of cloth woven from her yarn.  The thing is, that unless one spins very fast, it is not cost effective to weave fine hand spun.  How much would enough yarn to weave a bolt of cloth from Holin's slow spun yarn cost?  Do you want to sink that much value into a bolt of woolen cloth?


Edited to add, the problem was in the vibration damper, and flyer speed is now back at 3,600 rpm allowing spinning at over 11 yards per minute.   Still that is another 20% gain in productivity. Now I can spin 4 days what it would have taken 6 days as the wheel was set up yesterday.  This is the advantage of taking the time to tune up the wheel.

Out of Lyme

I seem to have found a Lyme Literate MD (LLMD), and massive doses of  Doxycycline seem  to be bringing me out of the debilitating fatigue and brain fog of Lyme Disease.  However, the physical therapy to repair the ravages of LD suck the time out of the week, and there are gigantic uncompleted task lists.  My productivity over the last 5 or 6 years has not been as high as it was in other periods of my life.

I expect LD imposed physical limitations on me, starting about 5 or 6 years ago. This was about the time I started spinning, so that I did more planning and analysis, rather than stupidly rushing in and trying to make a great wheel do what only a DD wheel could physically do.  Looking back, with or without Lyme Disease, working out the mechanical details of differential rotation controlled flier/bobbin systems was a nice piece of work.

And, if like Holin, I had wasted 28 years spinning on a GW rather than using a faster, lower effort, technology, I would be furious with myself.  Imagine, spinning for 30 years on a GW and still not being able to produce a hank of worsted spun gansy yarn in one day, and then have a fellow that had been spinning for only 5 years learn to use a DD wheel to easily spin a hank of gansey yarn in one day, even when he is disabled by Lyme Disease.  I mean after 30 years of spinning, one might use a GW for aesthetic reasons, but after 30 years of spinning, and still not understanding that a DD wheel can be much faster than a GW; Oh, my! It would be so humiliating.

Nevertheless, time devoted to physical therapy seems to have peaked, and with brain fog clearing I seem to be able to get more stuff done. I have referred to myself as a "fat old man, with palsy".  Much of that was due to Borrelia.  These days, I feel 15 years younger.

LD produces a brain fog, so one fails to index the knitting journal and thus picks up Mary Thomas, rather than the knitting journal as one sits down to knit Eastern Cross Stitch. In the drawing in MT illustrating ECS, the needles are at an obtuse angle. That approach requires pointy needles and brute force.  If the angle between the needles is acute, ECS is easier. She would defend the drawing saying it depicts continental style knitting. I say, if you want to knit tight using continental knitting, you will ruin your wrists.  And, ECS is about knitting socks and hose that need to be knit tight.
Due consideration of prototypes tells me that ECS is not the traditional Jersey stitch. On the other hand, it is a very good stitch for socks.

In my world, most knitting is intended for destruction and discard.  Initial swatches will be tested to failure, and discarded. Prototypes are tested to failure, and discarded.  Objects are worn, repaired, worn some more, and ultimately discarded.  Objects that show great virtue will have replica swatches knit, which are kept and used in planning future objects.  However, I expect a knit object to last a few years, and in that time I study and learn. I know the effort to knit and test swatches and prototypes will result in better objects in the future, so the effort does not bother me.  I expect every object to be better than the object that it replaces. The socks that I knit today are much, much better than the socks that prompted Bob to offer me $200 for a pair of  hiking socks.  That is the way it should be.

I make and test: new tools, new yarns, and techniques.  None of the needle makers understand my knitting needle needs as well as I do. All of my needles have been adapted to my techniques and yarns.  My knitting sheaths have been adapted to my needles, my knitting techniques, and my yarns.  My yarns are adapted to my needles and my knitting technique.  It is a system and it works.

Needles and  yarns designed to generic standards and common techniques will not work together as well as my integrated system, and they will not produce objects of  similar virtues.

I demand extraordinary virtues from my knit objects.  The virtues that I demand may not be the virtues that you desire, and you may even disdain the virtues that I demand, but people who touch and feel my objects admit that I push knitting much farther than anyone else.  People either love or hate my knitting.  Nobody is indifferent to it.

PS  Everyone should just assume that each and every future post in this blog asks Holin, " How long does it take you to spin a hank of 560 yards of sport weight, worsted spun 5-ply yarn?"  When she is able to say, "less than a day", I will post her response so all of her students can ask for a demo.

GW 2

These days, I do not keep a great wheel.  I do have 2 motor driven spindles and 2 spindles that fit onto my treadle wheel.  None of these are as impressive to look at as a GW, but they are faster. And, they all allow me more use of both hands for drafting true worsted.

The motor driven spindles are easy to pause or stop, but hard to reverse.  Therefore, I had to learn how to wind-on with the spindle going in the same direction as when spinning.  It can be done, the answer is "out there", and I have no interest in teaching driven spindle technique.

If one does not have to reverse the spindle, then one does not have to stop, or pause the spindle, and the spindle can rotate continuously in the same direction.  One CAN spin a entire hank of single on a great wheel without ever reversing the wheel to wind on.  This can be much faster/easier than reversing rotation to wind-on depending on the inertia of the rotating system.

Nevertheless, the spindle must be slowed at various points in the spinning/drafting/wind-on process. Even though the spindle/wheel always rotates in the same direction, the slowdown/speedup cycle wastes energy. And, the wind-on cycle slows production of yarn. 

A spindle on my treadle wheel can insert twist many times faster than the flyer/bobbin assembly,  but the DD flyer bobbin assembly will spin and wind-on much more yarn in a minute or an hour or a day.  One of the motor driven spindles can insert twist many times faster than either spindle on my treadle wheel, but net production of single is not much different. Net production of spun yarn by a spindle is limited by the nature of its cycle, rather than by its peak speed.

A DRS flyer/bobbin assembly is the fastest hand spinning device for most natural fibers. Ring spinning can be faster for silk, but that is a specialized application.  Yes, those old double drive spinning wheels were the fastest way to spin.  They used the two loops of the drive band to synchronize the rotation of the bobbin and flyer to insert just the right amount of twist as the yarn was wound in at just the correct rate for the inserted twist. They did not have the drive band slip that is built into modern double drive wheels.  The result is that a double drive wheel without drive band slip that can produce singles much faster than a great wheel.  This is a truth that you have heard before.  It is just that all  modern DD wheels do have drive band slip and thus, spin more slowly than a GW.   In fact, a DRS flyer/bobbin assembly can produce true worsted spun yarn 5 times faster than a great wheel.  Every sock knitter should think about that.

And, since DRS is faster, sock yarns of more and finer (true worsted spun)  plies are possible.  These are very nice yarns that are simply out of reach of even the best spinners using a GW.  The use of DRS opens up spinning true worsted 5-ply gansey or even 10-ply Aran yarns.  And, it makes spinning true worsted warp for the loom much more feasible.

 On the other hand, a DRS flyer/bobbin assembly requires real skill to setup and maintain. I have seen two old DRS double drive wheels where the original DRS ratios had been "repaired", and the wheel converted to  modern standards.   As a result of the repairs, they could spin lower grist yarns, but could only do so --- slowly. These had been true collector's items and the owners were very proud of how fast they could spin -- if they only know how fast those wheels had been originally designed to spin, they would have been agast!   The difference between these wheels as designed and these wheels as "repaired" was only millimeters, and yet it made a huge difference in their performance. If one can teach the basics of using a GW in a 4-day workshop, then I would say that one could teach the basics of using DRS in a 4-week workshop.

Yes, Holin, my old Ashford can spin/ply a 500 yd hank of sport weight, worsted spun, 5-ply (gansey yarn) in an easy day.  How long does it take your GW?  In less than 14 hours, I can spin/ply a 500 yd hank of  worsted spun, 3x2-ply cabled, 1,600 ypp "sock yarn".  How long does that take your GW?  Shall we set up a demonstration in front of a judge and jury?  I want spinners like Judith MacKenzie and Stephenie Gaustad who know, and appreciate,  worsted spun yarns involved.

I have only been spinning for 6 years. (And, I was sick with Lyme Disease for much of that time!)  How long have you been spinning?  What will I be spinning when I have spun as long as you have been spinning?

The drop spindle as a baseline.

By the early medieval period, it was common for spinsters (professional spinners) to rent spinning wheels.  Spinsters were paid by the length of yarn they produced, and a spinning wheel allowed them to produce more yarn, so even after paying the rent on the spinning wheel, the spinner could have a higher net income.  (The large number of spinsters kept wagers down, so many spinsters did not have the capital to own their own wheel.)

I can spin yarns in the range of 3,000 to 8,000 ypp about a third faster (e.g., 1,300 rpm) with a spindle than I can with a typical modern wheel (1,000 rpm).  Since I am not terribly proficient with a drop spindle, I assume that professional spinners could spin with a drop spindle much faster than I can (e.g., more than 2,000 rpm for some grists.) Therefor, I assume that the spinning wheels of the early medieval period were much, much faster than the typical modern wheel.  My spinning wheel spins 2 or 3 times faster than I can spin with a spindle.  I think that spinning wheels circa 1400 likely inserted twist at ~2,500 rpm or more.   This is faster than contemplated by Alden Amos.

Just prior to 1,400 ce, there were just under 400,000 textile workers in Florence, but Flanders was actually a larger producer of woolen textiles, and there were significant textile production centers in France, and England. Thus, there was a significant market for spinning wheels.  This would have justified shops where groups of craftsmen specialized in making and repairing spinning wheels. These were spinning wheels for full time professional spinners.  Some of these spinners supported tapestry weavers. These wheels were not for hobby spinners or part-time subsistence spinners or cottage craft spinners.  Regardless of their skill, cottage craft spinners did not produce the tons of  gold, silver, and silk wrapped yarns that the better tapestry weavers demanded.  A cottage cannot provide the security required for handling large amounts of precious metals on a regular basis..

And time was money.  Professional spinners were paid by the yard of yarn produced, and wanted the fastest possible equipment.  This was not a matter of bragging rights for hobbyists, but of income to support the family.

All in all, I have no doubt that Florentine spinning wheels, and even more likely, wheels made in Flanders, could run at 2,500 rpm by about 1380. Metal workers and wood workers of the time could have make all the elements of my wheel that can spin at 4,000 rpm. As a one off object it would have been very expensive, but a shop that produced dozens of wheels per year could reduce costs. Yes, they would use boxwood where I use Delrin, but with plenty of lard oil, the boxwood bearing works -- it just splatters oil, and needs to be replaced after every 2,000 or 3,000 hours of use.

Such wheels do not show up in paintings of time.  The wheels in the paintings are more symbolic, than functional. Add up how long it would take for the depicted wheel to spin the yarn required to weave all the cloth painting. Even in paintings of "spinners", someone else is doing the bulk of the spinning to produce all the cloth shown in the painting.  The culmination of this symbolism:

 Vicky wearing clothing woven from 

finer yarns than what she is spinning!

The clothing worn by Queen Victoria was mill spun, but she shown with a replica of an old technology. I expect that the same thing also happened in earlier times.

Today, we have photographs of  people spinning, and they still have not spun the yarn for all the cloth in photograph.  Even people who claim that they can spin and weave all the clothing needed by their family.

https://www.youtube.com/user/afranquemont

The best you are likely to find is somebody that spins and uses that yarn for knitting their own socks and sweaters.  

Why was the art of earlier times so different? The simple answer is that human nature has not changed.  Old spinning technology symbolizes traditional values.  What would people have thought if QV was shown in the mill where the yarn for her dress was actually spun? As a setting for a portrait, a spinning factory in 1480 would have been just as jarring as photographing Q.V. in a spinning mill in 1880. And yet, such a mill would have been a better place, and a better way for Q. V. and her ladies to develop an understanding of the tasks and roles of the common women of England, than spinning a few yards of yarn at Buckingham, Osborne, or Balmoral



Certainly any yarn can be spun with a spindle.  Finer yarns are more easily spun with a supported spindle than with a drop spindle, but it is very possible to spin wool, at it's spin count, with a drop spindle. However, it is much, much easier if the spindle has a hook, rather then trying to use a half - hitch.  Some teachers have made fun of me of me when I first made this assertion, but I note when they spin yarns finer than about 11,000 ypp they tend to use a spindle with a (metal) hook,  I have yet to see them spin wool at it's spin count using a half-hitch.  In fact, I have yet to see them demonstrating spinning wool at its spin count with a spindle.