Real Hate

A lot of knitters and spinners hate me.  It is a good hate, but it is not a REAL HATE.  I have been the object of  REAL HATE.

A long time ago, I worked for Steve Weil, who had been Branch Chief at the US EPA responsible for writing the RCRA hazardous waste regulations.  So when ASQC was writing the environmental data quality standards  I was invited to join in.  The ASQC standards become part of the EPA RCRA regulations, which also applied to CERCLA.  A few years later, part of my job was to tell Program and Project Managers at the Hanford nuclear facility (US-DOE RL) that yes, they really did have to comply with data quality standards.  They had not budgeted for this, and they thought it was going to wreck their budgets. These were powerful men, who made a lot of money for Bechtel, and they were accustomed to getting their way.  They had REAL HATE for me, and the power and access to implement that hate.  It was only the direct intervention of  Dr. McHugh in US-DOE EM-63 that saved my ass.

While I was finishing up the manuals, Dr.  Tindal went around to the Program and Project Managers, and said, "Hey, data quality standards are a magical, double edged sword that can save your projects huge amounts of money." And sure enough, the Program and Project Managers, were able to save so much money for taxpayers that they got a $10 million performance bonus.  Then, they loved me.

Experienced  spinners spin and knit the way they were taught, and they have never seen anyone spin or knit differently, so that assume that they are spinning and knitting as well as humanly possible.

Then I come along and say,"No,15th - 18th century spinning and knitting was better." Experienced knitters and spinners just do not believe me.  The are experienced, and they have never such such work (actually produced), so I must be liar. They hate me for saying they are not the best that ever was. Don't these folks go to the Louvre and look at how well the threads in the tapestries were spun? It is amazing.  I spent 3 minutes looking at the Mona Lisa.  I spent 5 hours looking at a dozen tapestries.

For the last century, recreational spinners and knitters compared their output to that of other recreational spinners and knitters.They did not compare their work to to the work of professionals with the elan that separates the talented professional from the merely competent amateur.  Yes, an NFL professional football team is better than a bunch of guys that used to play in college that get together and play on the local high school field.  And professional spinners in the 18th century were better than modern recreational spinners.

And that word "competent" brings out the core of the antagonism. For a long time (centuries), it was assumed that any competent spinner could spin wool at its spinning count. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_count)

The whole British wool grading and pricing system was based on experienced spinners using their little twisty sticks to determine how many hanks (of 560 yards) per pound a competent spinner could spin from that wool.  So, I say a competent spinner can spin Cotswold at 40 hanks per pound (22,000 ypp), Shetland at  60 hpp (34,000 ypp), and Rambouillet or Merino at 70 hpp (40,000 ypp.)  This drives modern hand spinners up the wall.  They do not think it can be done.  They think I must be a liar.  In fact, spinners spun this fine at commercial speeds. By taking their time, spinners can spin much finer. A number of modern spinners spin wool at over 100,000 ypp.  However, the modern assumption is that it takes years and years to learn to spin that fine.

No, it takes a set of planned evolutions to build the skills.  Not a class here, and a class there, but planned and sequential training, with extended and focused exercises.   In 1600, British spinning schools trained spinners to spin a fine linen thread in each hand in two years.  It is not rocket science.

So last summer, I did a spinning evolution to learn to spin finer.  Part of it was spinning miles and miles of 30,000 ypp Shetland singles.  I spun that because there is an easy and  accurate way to gauge grist. One cuts a short piece of single off cleanly, and drops it into soapy water in a saucer.  If the single is at the spin count, there will be 18 -20 little fibers of wool in the water. So, anyway I spun miles of those singles.  It was my spinning homework.  If your spinning teachers do not assign you miles and miles of homework, they are not doing their job. My spinning teacher is known for doing a fine job. Not wanting to do lace, I turned the singles into 10-ply fingering @ 3,000 ypp.  It is nice sock yarn.

Experienced spinners do not believe that I did it and they hate me.  (Some of them claim to have also taken classes from my spinning teacher, but if so, they did not do their home work.)

 Go buy a pair of very fine socks at an excellent department store such as Saks or Nordstroms  and look at how finely the yarn is spun.  Fine plies is the right way to make yarn for really nice socks.  Now look at the yarn they sell for knitting socks your LYS.  Knitters get all wound up over color and softness, but there is more to excellent socks than color and softness.  When I say things like this, you can see why experienced spinners and knitters hate me.

But, it is a magical, double edged, sword.  I am also giving them a way to produce much higher quality textiles.  I am not saying that everyone should knit and spin like I do,  I am just saying that as community we should keep this repertoire of tools and skills alive. Better tools and skills put higher quality textiles within reach of  more spinners and knitters.

The motto over the door of my favorite library is:  "He who knows only his own generation remains always a child."  They wonder why I am patronizing and condescending. If someone thinks like a child, I treat them like a child.