The Wild West

Spinning is the new Wild West for me.  It does not matter, which direction I go, there are always opportunities to spin faster.


I made my Lazy Kate to solve the problem of  handling 10 singles.  However, it provided such good tension control of singles being plied, that I no longer have to steam block singles prior to blocking them.

I think blocking singles prior to plying produces a better final yarn, but not blocking prior to plying is faster.

Recently most tensioning Lazy Kates used some sort of a brake band.  This slowed swapping bobbins, required use of similar bobbins, and generates uneven tension if one bobbin is full and another nearly empty.

However for practical and ordinary yarns that do not need to be of "ART" quality,

This kind of a lazy kate allows quick change of bobbins, even tension as the bobbin empties, use of full and empty bobbins, and it tames even fresh, high twist singles.  This speeds the handling of singles and gives you a few more minutes of actual spinning per hour.

And it is cheap.  You can get the necessary from Michaels or any hardware or lumber store.  If you are only working with 3-ply, you do not need anything this big.  One-fourth that size will work just fine.  

So why don't "experienced spinners pass this kind of knowledge on to beginning spinners?

The topic came in in Henry Clems' office the other day, and he said, "Of course, tension boxes are the the way to tension singles for plying.   (The above is just a kind of tension box.)

So, here is where I am.  Most spinners are not very good with technology and math.  Spinners that are good with technology and math do not bring it up because they do not want to offend the spinners that are not very good with technology and math. 

As a result, there are a lot of romantic misconceptions and myths that go round and round the spinning world and anyone that accepts any of these loses their chance of spinning fine and fast.  

The posts on Ravelry are full of misconceptions and myths that go on and on.  I have given up on them.  That community does not have the political will to root out stupidity and rudeness.  On a spinning wheel/ flyer-bobbin assemblybly, the rotating bobbin inserts the twist that makes the yarn.  The twist inserted by the flyer is only ~ 1 tpi which is never enough to make a competent yarn.  However,  a rotating bobbin can insert any amount of twist desired by the spinner from low twist roving to hosiery yarns to high - twist fines of more than 25 tpi.  A spinner that does not understand where and how twist is inserted, cannot be an intelligent buyer of spinning equipment, and cannot be an intelligent user of spinning equipment.

So these folks that do not know how their spinning wheel works, assume that I cannot possibly know how my spinning wheel works, and therefor, I cannot possibly spin faster than they do.  

Twist is energy, thus spinning is physics, and good physics leads to better spinning.