Tudor Textiles

 Look at paintings of the Tudor Court (Henry VIII ==> Elizabeth R). Now, sit down and spin threads and weave samples of fabrics that match what you see in the paintings. Track your productivity and estimate how long it took to produce the fabrics in those paintings. Look at lists of Tapestries owned by the Tudors, with all of those threads covered by thin layers of gold. Estimate how that gold covered thread was produced - and by who.

You will quickly come to a conclusion that there were textile technologies not taught to modern hobbyists.   The corollary is that there were crofters producing coarse wool fabrics, and there were colonies of  high-end textile workers producing fine fabrics for the rich and powerful. 

This is not the history taught in hobby circles. 

Consider the Wool Act (1571) requiring hats knit from English wool be worn on Sunday. We know that 13 or 14 different professions were involved in the different stages of producing those hats in an industrial process. This is not the mythology told by Queen Victoria's Court, and today passed amoung hobby spinners and  knitters.  

One who does believe Queen Victoria's Court's mythology about English spinning and knitting has posted almost 50,000 times on Ravelry.  She has a bunch of spinning wheels, but I doubt if she could spin the yarn needed for a good fisherman's kit in time to knit the kit in before next season's fishing.  And then there is the question of whether she can knit a good weatherproof fabric.  And there is the question, of whether she could knit socks, mittens, comforter, hat, and gansey without getting carpel tunnel in her wrists.

see also: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp148-182#h3-0002  

Sheringham

 If the fine yarns the Sheringham ganseys were knit from had/have the beauty of the yarns I am spinning, then I can very much understand the fascination with Sheringham ganseys as objects of  art and beauty.  

Bias

 As I began producing these finer yarns, I had a problem matching singles twist to ply twist. 

This was resolved with a new drive band between the accelerator and the flyer/bobbin assembly.

All of a sudden, the math worked again.

The Economics of the yarns I am making these days

 I start by spinning worsted singles at 17 tpi and between 11,000 and 14,000 ypp.  In an hour, I can spin about 300 yards, using about 10 grams of fiber. 

For the BeeHive replica (4-ply, 2,500 ypp), I then ply 4 singles together, and produce yarn at about 70 yards per hour. Then a 30 gram/ 1 ounce / ~100 yards ball is 1.5-hours work.

For the 6-ply (1,700 ypp) yarn, I can average about 50 yards of yarn ready to scour, so an ounce ball is a couple hours of work. 

However, it takes me twice as long to knit a square inch of fabric from the 4-ply as from the 6-ply, so spinning is cheaper than knitting.

Is this spinning worth my time?

I justified spinning gansey yarn because of its exceptional functionality.  I do not know what the functionality of these yarns is. 

I have never seen yarns in retail yarn shops that knit into such beautiful fabrics. I have seen such beautiful fabrics in museums and the catwalks of Paris. I have seen almost as nice fabrics in fancy department stores such as Needless Markup. All of a sudden I see how a suit of hand spun clothes can cost as much as a house.

The fibers I am using are sunk costs - fleece that I bought or were given to me long ago, and which I did not use because it was not suited to past projects. Then, I did not understand that if I just spun it  worsted and very fine - it would be exceptional.

For now, I am going to justify this exercise by saying, my spinning is as good as spending the day in the gym - and thereby saves me $50/month YMCA dues.

Spinning and sampling - Jacob

 

 September 28, 2021 - spinning singles from dyed Jacob fiber,  then plying into 4-ply yarn at about 2,700 ypp. I knit this yarn on 1.3 mm needles at about 12 spi.

For those that do not like "BeeHive" style yarns, I also made some 6-ply at ~ 1,700 ypp (spinning is faster than knitting.)  The history of industrial fine knit underwear, socks, and sports wear however,  tells us that, "Fine knitting makes nice things to wear."

These yarns are based on singles of ~11,000 - 12,000 ypp that I spun worsted at 17 tpi, and the ply-twist is also ~ 17 tpi. 

I was going to spin a lot of this fleece as sock yarn because my wife told me it is not a good color for my complexion.  Once I get in the groove, it spins very fast - close to 250 yards of single per hour - that is about 10 grams of fiber into single/ hour. I have to hustle to spin a quarter pound of fiber per day.  On the other hand, a quarter pound of either of these yarns is days of knitting. I knit this yarn on 1.5 mm needles at about 10 spi.

I had not gotten 10 rows into the swatches before I had fallen in love with the fabrics from both yarns. They are firm without being harsh - they are elastic to an extent that we just do not see any more because mills do not put that much twist in their yarns these days - And it is a very lustrous fleece spun worsted - it almost glows in the dark - but these yarns are still hard to knit while binge watching dark old black and white movies - the knit fabric is almost black.  And, my wife tells me that spun and knit into that 'almost black', it is a good color for me. 

Worsted spinning is very worth while. Sitting on patio this morning, spinning, with the sun coming up behind me - the thread was like a line of fire passing through my fingers, and going "black" as it became competent yarn. The final yarn is lustrous (brown) that knitted firmly looks lustrous black.

I do not know if such high twist singles can be made "weatherproof", or whether fulling the fabric would diminish the fabric through loss of elasticity. California is having a drought - I am not going to worry about "weatherproof".

Romney, 4-ply, 2,300 ypp

Is it like the old Baldwin's BeeHive? No!, that was spun from a finer fleece.

As I knit this (Romney, 4-ply, 2,300 ypp) on 1.3 mm needles at 12 spi,  it was very elastic.  I thought, "No way it will ever come close to being weatherproof!"  However, fulling brought the gauge to ~12.5 spi and sure enough, it is pretty much weatherproof, but still fairly elastic. I think it is dense enough prevent sunburn here in sunny California.

It's fault is that I am back to a left leaning bias, so I must improve my plying.

Besotted

 For twenty years was besotted with 5-ply/ 1,000 ypp gansey yarn. That despite the fact that the first weatherproof fabrics that I produced were socks from https://www.macauslandswoollenmills.com/. I knit a lot of very serviceable camping, climbing, and ski gear from MacAusland's yarn.  

Nevertheless, there was always the siren call of Sheringham ganseys.  I should have given  in to the call 10 years ago, and moved to spinning finer yarns, that could be knit into finer ganseys.

Ok, the spinning is not as fast - I spin 11,200 ypp singles at about 300 yards per hour compared to the almost 600 yards per hour of coarser singles. Plying is not as fast, but I do it on the spinning bobbins that I use to spin the singles - that means balls of plied yarn are ~30 grams - just like the balls of BeeHive Yarn that Baldwin mills sold all those years ago.

The fine fabric that I knit from Rambouillet yarn is translucent -  and if I wear it in sunny California, I will get sunburned. I need to spin a similar yarn from that pile of Romney that I dyed navy blue.  I made several tries at that over the last couple of months and was never happy with the result - I just threw a big handful of those swatches away.  

One problem was bias. The lines of knit stitches did not run straight - they spiraled (when knit in the round.)  In some ways, fine singles are harder to ply than coarse singles.

Learning to knit, again

 

A swatch of worsted handspun 4-ply (about 2,500 ypp, singles at 17 tpi, plied at 17ptpi) knit on 6" by 1.3 mm needles (in photo). 

Fleece is Rambouillet from https://www.annagotwool.com/ .

Knitting gauge is about 12 spi by 19 rpi = ~250 stitch per square inch. As knit, not blocked. 

Angle of photo makes needles look "pointy", they have flat tips.

After fulling, the swatch has a small bias, that was easily removed by blocking. Result gauge similar to knit gauge, e.g., ~250 stitches per inch squared.

Fabric is weatherproof.

It is translucent- you can get a good sunburn through it, but it will keep your skin dry and warm in a light rain, as you can work, as water vapor from your skin will evaporate and the vapor move through the fabric.

This makes me think the folk in Norfolk, have forgotten the real practical virtues of a Sheringham gansey. They seem to think of them as "art", "a token of affection" or a fashion statement - not as a very practical and useful object. 

In the beginning

 In the beginning, I hoped others would read my explorations with wool and help me find the path.

It did not happen. I have walked alone, as folk that still think Queen Victoria produced great textiles, shout insults.

Therefore, I recorded my steps and missteps. If I found steps forward, I posted them, without going back and changing previous posts, because I saw wool as a complex system, and if the final result was wrong, I was not sure where or how the final result was wrong.

Consider pointy needles: Early on, a speed knitting champion told me that I needed very pointy needles to knit fast. In her technique, that was true. It was the conventional wisdom since Weldon's Practical Knitter in the Victorian era. All of that presumes that one is not using a knitting sheath.

It took me 15-years work out the techniques with a knitting sheath so that I understood that because of the leverage, knitting sheaths can knit faster with flat tipped needles.  Now, I know that if the "speed knitter" and I each set out to knit a hundred good weatherproof ganseys (as fast as possible), one of two things will happen: 1) Her ganseys will be rejected because they are not knit tight enough. Or 2) she will need wrist surgery after she has knit only 2 or 3 ganseys. 

Moving to flat tipped needles doubled my knitting speed. All of a sudden, I was almost as fast as speed knitting competitors, but I was still knitting fabrics much tighter than anything the speed knitters were knitting - and I was an old man with chronic Lyme Diease. 

When I started, I thought there was some secret of yarn and knitting pattern that resulted in warmth. After a few thousand swatches, it was clear that the critical factors were distance between wool fibers and oil on the wool to help make the wool hydrophobic. Distance between wool fibers was the result of type of fleece, how the wool was spun (woolen or worsted) how tightly it was knit, the thickness of the fabric, and how the fabric was finished (fulled).  Together, these factors outweigh Alden's and Judith's simplistic rule that fine fleece,  spun woolen is warmer.  My rule is that worsted spun, yarns with more plies are warmer and more durable. Oh, a lot more effort, but warmer and more durable. Another of my rule is that finer fleece can result in higher warmth to weight ratios, but are less durable than coarser wools so over years, the difference is not worth a cup of fresh piss. (Stale piss has more value for fulling wool.)

After school, I was rather adventuresome, and had some unpleasantly cold experiences.  As I got some money, I bought some fancy synthetic adventure clothing.  Then, I got to wondering how the seamen out on damp, cold ships stayed warm. I started exploring wool.  

My mother asked me to prune her apple orchard - I knew the weather would be brutal - so I brought the fancy adventure gear, and my hand knit wool.  I froze in the fancy gear, and the wool saved my ass.

Then, my mother wanted all the tree prunings burned - I got caught in the flames. If I had been wearing the synthetic fabrics, I would have been toast - and it was an hour to the nearest hospital, and 3 hours to a hospital with a burn center.  The flames took my facial hair and the hair at the nape of my neck, but my glasses protected my eyes. The fire burned all the pills off of my wool, leaving it smelling singed, but looking pristine.

Wool is not one solution, but a wide range of solutions. I really believe that it took thousands of bright-eyed, nimble fingered folks looking for ways to stay warm, thousands of years to work out all the textile solutions available circa 1750 - prior to the Spinning Jenny, but long after the knitting frame.

Many of the solutions are very practical, but details matter.

1. A  thick, very tightly knit sweater, with plenty of wearing ease and an "Irish Boat" neck, will keep one warm and even let one nap in a snow bank, but standing up and  warm will vent out the neck, allowing one to go into the pub and have a pint without over heating - it does not need a zipper.
2. A gansey knit snugly will allow one to go into the top rigging, perform acrobatic work without getting hypothermic and losing coordination. Horizontal stitch patterns protect one from banging against spars, while reefing sails.
3. A finely knit gansey can be worn under a uniform coat, and lend distinction and authority to a ship's officer, and keep him comfortable below deck when he is not wearing his uniform coat.
4. A thick gansey with vertical patterns could protect a fisherman hauling hundred pound cod over the rail in a heaving sea.
5. The Lizard Lattice was excellent for men that spent a lot of time rowing small boats - either in near-shore fishing, rowing to and from boats anchored in the harbor or in off-shore whaling.

Each of these objects has a different function, but may be produced in a multitude of styles and patterns. The yarn used, the shape of the garment, the density of knitting, and the style affected how well someone could perform a particular job function. Wear a fisherman's gansey into a pub to do some horse trading, and you will be sweating long before you can come to a deal. Wearing a shepherd's gansey to reef the royals, and you will not be able to keep up with the other top-men, earning you a torrent of abusive language.

You can buy raw fleece for $20/lb, and a gansey is a couple of pounds, so a whole fleece is enough for several ganseys including sampling and swatching.  (With DRS) in the time it takes to binge watch Gilmore Girls, you can spin the yarn for a couple of ganseys and in the time it takes to binge watch Gray's Anatomy, you can knit a gansey. If you must watch old black and white movies like It happened One Night and the room will likely be darker and you may not see knitting mistakes.

I found that I preferred skiing in a wool gansey (in California, often in shorts.)  I prefer sailing in a wool gansey. If the weather is cold, I wear a gansey gardening in the winter.  I wear a gansey fishing. In the winter, I wear a gansey walking in the hills. I admit to wearing synthetic vests in centrally heated environments. I admit to planning on knitting myself some new ganseys that are not as warm.

Academia fails to pay attention to details.

A prominate English academic tried to replicate some of my fabrics, and did not achieve "weatherproof", and thereby assumes I am a fraud and troll.

First, there is knitting and there is knitting. It took me years of work to find knitting tools and technique that would produce weatherproof fabrics. Then, it took me more years of  research to learn to full and oil the fabrics.  I warned him about this 3- times and I do not think he paid attention. 

My day job was knowing how water moved through various materials. My hobby was working out how seamen stayed warm and dry in cold, wet ships, when they had to go into the rigging regardless of the weather.

In the old days there was a trade devoted to fulling wool, and every knitter knew how it was done. Every weaver knew how it was done. Every weaver's wife knew how it was done even if it was done by a different trade.  (Fulling - Wikipedia)

The first time I fulled a gansey and realized how important fulling was, I simply wore it camping on the Big Sur River. I fried bacon it, and wore it all day and all night, with no undershirt. My body oils oiled the inside, the bacon fat oil the outside and playing in the river and rock climbing did the rest.  It took me weeks to understand what happed to that sweater, that made it weatherproof. There was a period, where I practiced fulling and oiling wool to make it weatherproof. I knit a lot of big swatches, fulled them, and oiled them. I knit a dozen small swatches in the last week, each got kneaded with soap and rolled between my hands in every direction, then rinsed, then smeared with lanolin, and rolled between my hands in every direction.  Then and only then were they tested for "weatherproof?".

Softly spun yarns and loosely knit objects do not full, they turn to lint or shrink into doll clothes. Tightly spun yarns that are tightly knit can get stiff.  Sample and swatch, before you knit a large object and try to full it. Likewise, sample and swatch if you plan to knit a "Sheringham" gansey.

If that academic had understood knitting with a knitting sheath, he would have discovered the use of blunt needles before reading it on my blog. I was working with blunt needles for 6 years before recommending blunt/flat tipped needles.  It took me that long to work out and learn the technique. It is not something you learn in weeks.

Sampling beyond Sheringham

It was a change of perspective to be spinning to 80 wpi (20 warps per 1/4"), rather than 18.7 wpi trying to spin 5,600 ypp (10s).  An obvious progression is 120 wpi (30 wraps per 1/4"). It does not come out to a nice number of hanks per pound, but with the fleece I was using - it came out to singles of just under 15,000 ypp and about 17 tpi.

As 6-ply that is a nice sock yarn of near 2,250 ypp and as 5-ply it is a nice sock yarn of about 2,700 ypp. This was done in a few hours of late afternoon sun after fussing with whorls and combing some Rambouillet.  It was scoured on the reel, dried on the reel in the evening sun but not otherwise blocked.

A couple hundred feed of  yarn from singles with grist of ~15,000 ypp. One end is 5-py, the other end is 6-ply.  White singles are Rambouillet  and the blue is Romney.

________________

40 wraps per quarter inch, gets us to 25,600 ypp, and we are getting close to spinning fine. 46 wraps per quarter inch gets us to "fine spinning". I expect 46 wraps per quarter inch (184 wraps per inch) at 60s made that an important grist for hand spinners. (On #0 flyer, the Rambouillet easily spins at 46 wraps per quarter inch, but I do not have pix at this time.) That is a 6-ply of just under 4,000 ypp. I am not going to knit anything like that for anyone that does not have full time lady's maids.  On the other hand, I really do like this evening's yarn.  Time to spend less time knitting and more time weaving.

The "black eye" on the 1/4" yarn gauge is a magnet that holds the gauge handy on the wheel.

 

Why I knit and spin

Spinning and knitting is an ongoing  intellectual and physical challenge at many levels. Textile work has mental  and physical challenges that video  games and sports do not, and it has rewards that video games and sports do not.

Certainly, just learning to knit and spin were challenges. And knitting and spinning with modern tools are pleasant pastimes. It is pleasant to sit and knit or spin with a group. 

However, when I get off by myself, I always wonder; "How can I do this better or faster?" "What tools can I make that will allow me to knit or spin better or faster?", "How good or how fast were the old PROFFESIONAL knitters and spinners?",  "What tools did they have that let them produce a more professional product with a higher profit margin?"

I like spinning and knitting. I also like designing and making tools that make the various textile processes faster and easier. Mr. Comber invented industrial wool combing. And, then he reinvented it. Making tools is fun!  And I am an old man with chronic diease, but I can flop down and do a lot of pushups - combing wool by hand is one of the very best exercises I know.

No video game that I know is more thrilling than spinning fast and fine. It is not unlike; "Hand feeding a hungry dragon, that is very fussy and particular about their food.", but if I do (comb the wool) well, I get glorious, lustrous, fine thread, that is strong. It is me against the history of textile art and technology. No other competition is as harsh, and no other competition offers these such rewards. And that is just to get the yarn  to start knitting. 

If I am spinning and knitting - then I should be spinning and knitting better and better. To do that, I need better skills and better tools.  However, Queen Victoria established the president that none of her ladies should spin or knit better than she did.  That is not the kind of idea that I like.

DRS Failure

 In the spring of 1991, I was tasked with a regulatory compliance audit of the US Petroleum reserve in  Bakersfield, California. Mostly it was walking around a huge petroleum pumping facility looking for leaks and taking detailed notes. By May, Bakersfield was warming up weather-wise, and I mentioned the fact to my boss in SF.  He said, "I will take care of that", and handed me a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia. A week later, I was shaking hands with Red Adair's team at the kick-off BBQ.  There was heat, smoke, oil well fires, and crude oil everywhere.

Since then, I have not complained about the heat in California. This summer has been warm and sunny, and I did my spinning outside. 

Anyway, spinning bobbins and flyer whorls I had turned from wood, have contracted and changed my DRS ratios. Often the contraction is only a fraction of a millimeter, but that is enough to affect inserted twist per inch.  

It was a failure, but not a sudden catastrophic failure. Whorl combinations that should have yielded 12 tpi actually produced 17 tpi. Whorl combinations that should have produced 17 tpi, actually spun at more than 20. What should have been 24 tpi was - zero tpi.  (Higher tpi is produced by the whorls being closer to the same diameter, but when they are the same diameter, then tpi is zero.) (Wind on twist with no takeup  a => break-off no use in holding fine singles together.)  That is when I sat up, took notice, and got out the calipers, and started measuring.  

The wheel is not dead, it does not have heatstroke, it just needs a little water.  

Weatherproof socks

 Someday, here in Ca it will rain again, and we may need weatherproof socks. (My friends and family  in New England, may have an ongoing interest!)

One can knit knit weatherproof socks in a variety of form factors - mostly when I needed weatherproof socks they were knit from 5-ply gansey yarn,  but some may want weatherproof socks that are thin enough to fit into their town shoes. It can be done- particularly if one is a spinner. It turns out that it is not hard.

A swatch of fabric knit from Heinz 57 (from the Woolery)

spun into singles of just under 7,000 ypp at 12 tpi and plied at 

8 or 10 ptpi resulting in some bias when knit.

Nevertheless, those singles knit on 1.3 mm needles produce a nice sock fabric tight enough to hold a pool of water, and thin enough to fit in my town shoes. 

A thinner fabric based on 10,000 ypp singles in 3-ply:

 Will hold a pool of water briefly, and I consider it "almost weatherproof". 

I spent so long fixated n 5,600 ypp singles - and, I have been missing out - on a world of great things that can be had for a bit of spinning.  You can have it, just think: "spin thin", and spin!

OK! It may take some practice, but practice to spin thin uses less fiber than practice to spin thick, and you will spin a lot of fine yarn along the way.

Wool really is THE miracle fiber. One really can knit all kinds of things from 3-ply, 2,000 ypp yarn.  

Do not bother to tell the folks over at "Spin Tec". They would not believe you.