I like good socks. Good socks require good yarn. I do not like the commercial yarns that I see in retail yarn shops or fiber festivals. Thus, often I spin my own sock yarn.
However, sometimes I buy 2-ply/ 5,600 ypp weaving warp, and ply (cable) it up into sock yarn.
Weaving warp in various grist is often available very inexpensively as "mill ends".
For the last 10 years, this has been my source of "commercial" sock yarn. I buy 2-ply warp, and cable it up into sock yarn. Today, I think this is the easy approach to a Sheringham gansey. A Sheringham is enough knitting effort, that you may as well use a very good yarn.
Mostly, I get such yarn from : http://www.mitzis-yarn-weaving-knitting.com/
(I am her customer - no other relationship.)
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3 comments:
Hi, I've been binge-reading your blog, and I think all the work you've put in and all the methods and tools you've figured out is so impressive! I have a few questions, if you're willing to answer? What is the maximum TPI that you have created whorls for on your DRS wheel? What is the max RPM that you get your bobbins up to? Also, is it possible to spin "long draw" on such a wheel? By "long draw" I mean where the spinner first rapidly drafts out a length thicker than the intended yarn, and then continues to treadle while attenuating the yarn to the desired thickness, and then lets it wind on? It seems to me that it wouldn't, because it requires the yarn to not be winding on to the bobbin while it is being attenuated, and a DRS system would be constantly winding on.
Also, correct me if I am wrong here, but strictly speaking, your DRS system regulates twist, not thickness of yarn, correct? As in, if the wheel is set up to spin at 9tpi, you could in theory spin a super super thick 9tpi yarn so long as you drafted the fibers that thick? And the only way to spin yarn not exactly at 9TPI with those same whorls would be if the drive band is allowed to slip. (not including bobbin circumference changes).
Reading your blog has me thinking a lot about spinning wheel design, and i've had chain/sprocket and gear boxes running around my head all night. Thank you for all the research and work you've done, and thank you for posting it all here for people to read!
The whorls get replaced every couple of years. Right now, I have grooves for 9, 12, 17, 20, and 25 twists per inch. The 25 tpi whorl will allow spinning very fine threads. At one point I had a 32 tpi, but it was hard to maintain and I was not spinning that fine, so it got replaced.
Alden said he tested the flyers for 3,000 rpm because that was much faster than anybody could ever spin, and that was the speed at which some flyers made by others tended to self-destruct. Within a few weeks, I was spinning at 3,000 rpm by my laser based digital tachometer. Then I started designing and building the accelerators. There were several generations. At one point I did manage to spin, inserting twist at over 4,500 rpm. However, my fiber prep and drafting skill made such speed unsustainable. My best sustainable speed was 560 yards of 9 tpi single in 48 minutes or something in the range of 3,800 rpm which includes stops to change heck, and to reload the distaff. With all those stops, that is still almost 12 yards/minute! And, I promise you, if you are spinning that fast you will need perfect pencil roving on a good distaff, or you will break off, and breaking off will slow you way down.
Fibers have a preferred grist depending on fiber prep and twist. You can prep the fiber so it has a preferred grist for that inserted twist. You can use this fiber preference with to produce a very consistent single.
Letting the drive band slip on one whorl is very easy, just change the shape of the groove. However, once you permit drive band slip, you get yarn lock, and loose consistency of twist, then consistency of grist changes, and everything slows down. You are back to alternating twist insertion and wind on.
If you are going to alternate twist insertion and wind-on, then then either of the single drive flyer/bobbin assemblies is simpler, easier to maintain, and easier to use.
If I am spinning 10s (5,600 ypp) I need a drive band made of heavy butchers string. If I am spinning 30s (16,800 ypp) then medium butchers string does well, and I use only about 1/4 of the belt tension that I need for the 10s.
DRS without slip, is most powerful for fine yarns. With low grist yarn, the effective bobbin diameter changes very rapidly, so the inserted twist changes very rapidly. This causes the yarn to be very inconsistent. Such problems could be solved mechanically or electronically. I solve them by spinning fine singles, and using Scotch tension to ply the fine singles into the grist that I want. I have made excellent 10-ply Aran yarn (500 ypp) in this way.
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