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 myth of the Great Wheel

Great wheels have (or had) several virtues.  They are much faster then either a drop spindle or a supported spindle. Great wheels are easier to make than a flyer/bobbin assembly (but today are similarly priced).  And they can insert a lot of twist without any take up, which facilitates some drafting techniques.

I certainly bought into the myth of the great great wheel. Everyone that I trusted said how wonderful they were, it was just that they were big and expensive.  And they are a bit rare and exotic - that gives big wheel spinners a certain cache. For a long, long time, I wanted one.  I thought it was certainly the fastest and best way to spin woolen.  The only reason I did not get one was that I was focused on worsted for my gansey knitting.

As I planned spinning weft for the next weaving project, I thought sure I was going to have to get a great wheel.  Then as I spun the warp, I realized that I was spinning on a flier/bobbin  much faster than I had seen anyone ever spin on a great wheel..  I stopped, and did the math, coldly and rationally.

Great wheel's vices are that they are best with long-draw woolen drafting, and they cannot wind on at full speed.  Yes they go fast, but they also go slow. Their cyclical behavior is also a problem in handling fine yarns.

My conclusion was that the mythology arose as great wheels designed for production spinning were compared to flyer/bobbin wheels designed for leisure spinning.  In this comparison, the great wheel is always faster.  However, my flier/bobbin wheel designed for production is also always faster than a  flyer/bobbin wheels designed for leisure spinning. Thus, the real question is is a great wheel designed for production spinning faster than a flyer/bobbin wheel designed for production spinning?  The answer depends on the grist of the yarn being spun.  At low grist, the wheels are equal. At high grist, the flyer/bobbin wheel designed for production is significantly faster.

By the by,  the Canadian Production Wheel (CPW) was designed after the professional hand spinners had died out, and those skills were lost.  It was designed for amateur spinners, spinning low grist yarns.  Canadian Production Wheels were  not sold to professional spinners with the elan that separates the talented professional from the merely competent amateur.  The CPW did not have to be very fast because it not designed to spin industrial quantities of lace and weaving singles. After friction losses  and belt slip, CPW are hard pressed to insert twist faster than ~1,200 rpm.    That is much  more than required for 1,600 ypp singles for knitting yarn, and hence the myth of the CPW was born.

In truth, the ratio on a CPW was about the same as the ratio on the AA fliers as delivered.  So, in the context of modern spinning, a CPW was/is actually fairly fast.  However, as soon as you start spinning higher grist yarns the performance starts to lag.  I thought about buying the very fine CPW that Will Taylor had, but it was not fast enough, and I could not seen any easy way to make it faster.  On the other hand the the path to more speed with the AA fliers was clear - just a bit of wood turning.  As soon as I got the AA fliers, I made/installed new whorls with a higher ratio.  That was 2.5 years ago, and I am still making sacrifices to the Gods of Speed, so that I can spin faster. Current ratio is about 44:1,  which is more than twice that of a CPW (~20:1).  However, my actual flier speed after drivebelt slippage is about 3,600 rpm or 3 times the speed of Will Taylor's fine CPW at the same treadle cadence.  I run my wheel that fast for warp, but for woolen, I slow down to ~2,400 rpm because I think it produces a better yarn.  However, that is still twice as fast as a CPW.

My math says that a great wheel (spinning woolen)  is a bit faster than a CPW or, my AA fliers as delivered. That means a great wheel can be faster than the vast majority of modern spinning wheels. It also means that my wheel spinning 10,000 ypp woolen is 30%  faster than a great wheel.  That 30%, is enough time to weave the spun yarn. And, my worsted is spun much faster.  I no longer desire a great wheel.

These days, I spin (woolen) sitting in a wooden arm chair with my forearms resting on the chair arms, ~24 inches apart, with my right hand some 6 to 10" from the orifice.  (For worsted, my hands are about one staple length apart.) The support gives me the stability that I need to control the fine stream of fiber marching past. DRS controls take up and twist insertion.  This allows spinning very soft and very fine yarns.  I have never seen anyone else spin like this, but it is very fast.  If there is a problem, I have a few seconds to fix it before it disappears into the maw of the beast.  Arm movement are small  There is simply no way I can get that speed and control from a great wheel.  I am very happy with my woolen spinning, and no longer want a great wheel.

CNCH is coming up. I am going, and am taking my wheel..

http://www.cnch.org/conferences/cnch2014/

Long Draw

Long draw with driven spindles was one of the enabling technologies that made wool cloth less expensive, increased warmth for the masses, and made civilization in Europe possible.

Long draw with a great wheel is the traditional way to spin a lot of fine woolen yarn quickly.  See AA, The Big Blue Book, page 240.

However, with all due respect to AA and the big yellow strobe light that indicates the precise speed of all rotations at Dragonfly Farms, 20 years after AA wrote that, he made me flier/bobbin assemblies that do routinely spin at speeds between 2,400 and 3,600 rpm as indicated by my digital tachometer.

The great advantage of long draw is that it allows one handed drafting, while the other hand drives the spindle at great speed.

If I can drive a flier/bobbin assembly at a higher average speed, then my  flier/bobbin assembly can produce more yarn than the driven spindle.  And, since I use both hands to control fiber flow, I have more drafting options.  I can produce a pure worsted yarn.  Or, with a tiny change in hand position, a tiny change in how I pinch the yarn, and a change in fiber preparation,  I can allow twist to run into the fiber mass and produce a pure woolen yarn.  Since my flier/bobbin assembly is inserting twist as fast as a great wheel, I can produce pure woolen yarn as fast as I could using long draw and a great wheel.

On the other hand, long draw produces a more consistent, and higher quality yarn.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I do not really see a difference in fines or mediums. If there is an advantage, it would be with short fibers such as cotton.

The bottom line is that for a long time, I wanted a great wheel, but over the last year, that desire has gone away as I learned to produce similar threads at similar speeds on a  flier/bobbin assembly.  Since, I have both hands available to draft, the need for long draw has also gone away.