Back to the basics of plying

Soft and lofty woolen spun yarns present their own difficulties for plying, but the nature of the yarn hides the art of the plying.  If you want to show off your skill at plying, spin worsted.  Sure 4-ply woolen yarn takes skill, but 4-ply worsted  takes more skill.

If you want to know how good someone is at plying, look at one of their yarns plied up from fine, high twist singles.  In particular, 5-ply gansey yarn is a structure that is hard to get uniform, and the worsted singles make any and all faults in the plying clearly visible.  Because of its more stable structure, I feel that 7-ply is easier to ply into a uniform and consistent structure than 5-ply.

Making 5-ply gansey yarn is a evolution that every aspiring spinner should perform.  It is a good place to master Alden Amos's 4 principles of plying. (Tension, Distance, Re-wound bobbins, Constant Motion) With simpler yarns, one can get way with violating one or more of those principles.  However, a kilo of 5-ply will turn the Principles into habits, and thereby improve all of your yarns.  The lesson is worth the price of the fiber.  Sure it is a week of spinning, but we like to spin, right?

A kilo of 5-ply will also force you to acquire the tools (bobbins, lazy Kate, yarn guides or tension box)  for better plying.  These will stand you in good stead, when you want to make very high quality 2-ply woolen spun.

A kilo of 5-ply is enough for you to start thinking about blocking singles prior to plying. (If you go into one of mills producing high-end luxury yarns, you will note that they block the singles prior to plying.)  Alden talks about plying in Chapter 11.  In Chapter 10, he talks about ways to make yarn better.   I think one of the few glosses in the book is that on page 263,  he should have points 5 & 6 about washing and blocking the yarn.

Sometimes the extra effort to wash and block the singles will save a great deal of  time. I use spinning oil, so washing the single after it is spun means that I can store that yarn, and am no longer under pressure to use that yarn.  Thus, washing yarn immediately after spinning reduces my stress levels. Over all, it saves me time because the spinning oil lets me spin much faster. It produces a better yarn because the spinning oil lets me spin more uniform yarn.  Some singles are just much easier to ply after they have been blocked. One example is fine hosiery singles ( 23,000 ypp, 17 tpi).  And, yarns plied up from those singles will be much better when you do take the time to wash and block the singles.

This post was prompted when a spinner on Ravelry, who has never made any gansey yarn, tried to tell me that it is not important to rewind bobbins prior to plying.  It is this group that makes fun of me because I am only a beginner, but I have the "one right way to spin". They have this up-side-down.  I believe in different yarns for different purposes.  I believe in different tools and techniques for different yarns.   And, I believe that any set of  tools and techniques that has been invented, can be improved.  I always look for Better, Faster, Cheaper!  There is no one right way to spin!  Today's best way to spin is not good enough for tomorrow.  When I see a better way to spin, I adopt it. 

Plying

With all due respect to core spun yarns, plying is critical to the appearance, strength, warmth, and durability of yarn.  Why then, in modern spinning culture is plying considered a second rate procedure?  Spinners that have many beautiful, expensive spindles, use toilet paper rolls as storage/plying bobbins and a shoe box with knitting needles as a lazy Kate.

Sorry, but singles do not feed smoothly and evenly off of  a toilet paper roll on a knitting needle stuck through a shoe box. The result is less even plying.  A smooth, even flow of each single is required for good plying.  This is not a noticeable issue working with a few skeins of low twist woolen singles for 2-ply worsted weight yarns or even 4-ply DK yarns.  However, if one is making fine sock yarns or warp for a large weaving project it quickly becomes an issue.

Alden Amos is craftsman that knows how to ply, and is honest enough to tell his students and readers the truth.  Alden's Four Great Principles of Plying work.  However, Alden does not want to scare spinners off by telling them that they need a lot of expensive tools for plying.  That is my job.  (On the other hand, he has never been bashful about selling a lot of expensive tools for plying.)

Good plying tools are as essential as good spinning tools.  Instead of buying that third spinning wheel, use the money to get yourself some really good plying tools.  Get or make a good lazy Kate, with bobbins that fit, so that they turn smoothly.  (Along the way, you are likely to discover that you need a good bobbin winder.)

If you are working with fine or high twist singles, then they are much better behaved if they are blocked before plying.  Blocking singles prior to plying can result in much less over all effort, and much better yarns. With high energy singles, Alden's principle of rewound bobbins is an understatement.

Blocking can be accomplished by running the single through a steamer under tension.  Such a device can be made from a "T" of  PVC pipe attached to an inexpensive clothes steamer.  Less energetic singles can simply be wound onto reels, then washed and dried on the reel or the "Shaker Rocket Ship". This will take the combing/spinning oil out of the yarn and allow extended storage.  Here are some currently in use at the Tulip Patch:

The pointy thing, holds reels for winding off.

After washing and drying, singles can be wound into skeins for storage or put on plying bobbins.  I have also started using pirns as cores for winding cones.  More docile singles can simply be wound into center pull cakes for storage.

Now, comes the point of this post. Very fine singles are still a challenge to ply, particularly if you are doing 6 or 10  or more plies.  When working with large numbers of fine plies, consistent and uniform tension can be achieved with a tension box of the type used by weavers for warping sectional beams.  

I  use one made by AVl.  The one above by Leclerc is simpler.  For a spinner to buy, there is some sticker shock, but they are easy to make, once you have the idea - dowels between 2 reeds or raddles.

I have mine about 6' from the spinning orifice, and use DRS controlled twist insertion.  I allow twist to occur  as the singles exit the tension box. The result is fast uniform plying even when working with fine, high energy singles. 

The End

QA/QC on a large order of steel gansey needles presented me with something of an existential crisis.

As I checked them, they were blunt, and as everyone knows, my needles are pointy, and I make the needles that I like to knit with.  So how were these so blunt?

In the beginning, I made steel needles in the shape of all the commercial needles, and I polished them like jewelry. I felt that made the tips slippery, so I then left annular striations around the tip.  That was better, the striation helped the working needle "grab" the yarn.  In the last couple years, the striations have grated on my nerves and I have polished the tips more and more.  As I did that, I made the needles less pointy, so the yarn would be less likely to fall off the taper.

Along the way I changed from poking the working needle into the next stitch to sliding the working needle along the other needle and into the next stitch. A by product of this is that the working needle was not pushed as far into the working stitch.  These days I only push/slide the working needle about 4 mm into the working stitch.

A 2.5 mm Inox DPN has a 9 mm long taper.  If you only push it in 4 mm into the working stitch, then the tip of the needle where one wraps the yarn is less than a millimeter in diameter.  If you want to wrap the yarn around a full 2.5 mm needle then one must insert the Inox needle a full 14 mm into the stitch. These days, that is more needle motion that I want.

That means that I want the full diameter of the needle only a millimeter or two from the end of the needle.  That means a very short taper.  That means rather blunt needles.  That is the end of the pointy needle.

The 2 needles at left in the knitting are my latest gansey needles. The 2 needles at center left are commercial 16" & 14" DPN.  The single needle at center right is a striated pointy needle from the set that I used to make the Filey gansey 4 years ago.  The 4 needles at right are a set of old English needles given to me by a student.  They suggest that others knew that blunt needles do work if you have a knitting sheath and the right technique.  The paper is 1/4" grid.

On the other hand, blunt needles are crap for picking up stitches.  If you want to pick up stitches, you need pointy needles. Pointy needles are better for decreases and  most lace stitches.  Those ball tipped needles above are actually a bit too blunt for easy purling.  If you are using a knitting technique (such as those derived from Weldon) where the needle is poked into the stitch, then pointy needles are better.

And, these observations only apply to metal needles of less than 2.5 mm.

Edited to add, the above suggests that I am selling those ball tipped needles.  No, those are for my knitting garter stitch.  These days the needle tips that I sell are more like:

More on the hot rod wheel

My loom uses a warp tension system that employs sliding weights to vary the tension.  This put me to thinking that I could adjust the tension of the drive band on the spinning wheel by sliding the weights rather than changing the weights as I have been.  It works.  It complements the gang whorl system.

I just slide the weight  hanger from notch to notch on a lever attached to the MOA.

(The holes support a yarn guide for winding off ,)

 

Thus, I avoid running out to the garage to get different weights.

Overall, now I am satisfied with the spin system' performance.  At this time, this wheel will spin about as fast as I can draft. It meets my needs.

Three years ago, between slippage and vibration,  the new stock Ashford had a maximum twist insert of under 1,000 rpm for the DD & ST flyers, with the lace flyer perhaps 30% faster.  All in all, production speed of 10s (5,600 ypp singles) was under 200 yards per hour.

With Alden Amos's wonderful, low vibration fliers, gang whorls, and adjustable weight system, the system can now be run at well over 2,000 usable rpm on a sustained basis. This means that 10s can be easily spun at 350 yards per hour, and a uniform, knot free hank of 560 yards produced.   40s (22,000 ypp) can be spun in the close range of 200 yards per hour on a sustained basis.  While, I exceeded this speed with the stock Ashford flyer and the very high speed flier whorls that I fabricated last year, then there was more vibration resulting in lower quality thread and spinning on that gear was - more work.

While some of the increase in speed is improved skill, Istill use the stock Ashford flyer/bobbin assembly for plying (because of more capacity).  So I have the gear out on a regular basis and 1,000 rpm is still about as fast as it can go.  While I certainly did learn to spin 60s (30,000 ypp) on the Ashford lace flyer, that is much harder and requires more skill and concentration than spinning 60s on this system. With the current system of Alden's fliers and weight tension, 80s can be spun at a good pace.  More, I cannot ask of any spinning system.

As currently configured, I do not see any advantage to e-spinning, and I have re-purposed my e-spinner to a prin winder.

(Not shown is a safety lanyard that protects the tile floor from falling weights when the drive band breaks.)

The Path

I insist that there are always better, cheaper, faster ways of doing something.  When I find a better, cheaper, faster way, of doing something, I drop however I was doing it before and I do it in the better, cheaper, faster way.

Some paths have inherent limits, while other pathways lead farther.  I assert, that we tend not to consider all of the possible paths.  Thus, sometimes we choose the wrong path, and we have to stop, back track, and switch paths.

I do not care which path somebody else takes, or how far along that pathway they choose to go. I merely send out a beacon as to which path I am on, and how far I have gone. From this, others can tell if their path is better for their needs, or whether my path offers advantages.

I choose my path because it is a compromise that meets my needs.  I describe how I make the fabrics that I like, and the historical antecedents that lead me to these fabrics and production techniques.  Other people have other needs and wants and are welcome to choose other compromises and paths.

However, If I did not feel that my path was not the best path for me, I would have switched paths, so yes, I do feel that my path is the very best path for me.

I talk about knitting and spinning, and how it can be done. I do not talk about people, so I do not belittle anyone.

I set reasonable standards for myself.  I really do not care if anybody else meets those standards.  On the other hand, if the knitting and spinning police want to come around, I expect them to be my peers and to do all the things that I do, at least as well as I do them.

The truth is that much of what generates the hostility is the issue of standards.  Most knitters and spinners do not like talking about spinning and knitting in quantitative terms.

However, one gets what one measures.  I want "fine."  Thus, I measure fineness. Only by measuring fineness will I know when I have gone as far along the path to fineness as possible, and then I must ask myself, "Is this fine enough, or do I need to find another path?"  I want speed.  Only by measuring speed can I determine if I am going fast enough, or if I must find another path.  Only by setting standards can I tell if I am on the right path (using the right technology) or whether I must find another path (technology). Only by measuring can I tell if I am advancing along my chosen path.

The last 6 months have seen great leaps forward in both my spinning and knitting. For now, I am very content with my spinning and knitting.

Thus,

I have acquired a gently used AVL 16 harness,  48" Dobby loom.  

(It has flyshuttles, but they are not shown.)

It will likely be a long time before I have much else to say.  I expect a long, steep, learning curve. Wish me luck.

gangs of whorls for fliers

Some would say that the last post was very unfair, as both Alden Amos and Henry Clems HAVE made DRS spinning wheels and had to take them back when the wheel would not produce the yarn desired by the spinner.  Alden in particular has colorful language about the difficulties of  designing a DRS system to produce a specified yarn and the potential for any DRS system to stop functioning for no obvious reason.  (Every DRS system will result in pools of tears/ sweat at some time. )

DRS controlled spinning requires spinning techniques that are not taught in modern spinning classes.  And, if you are limited to the techniques taught in modern spinning classes, you will have poor results with DRS controlled equipment.  For example, "long draw" spinning does not work. At this time, DRS gear would not be my first choice for spinning woolen yarn. On the other hand, one reason for spinning woolen is that spinning woolen can be fast, but DRS allows me to spin worsted much faster than most flier wheels can spin woolen.

Henry Clems says the pages on DRS in AA have caused him a lot of problems.  People read AA, and ask Henry for a DRS wheel, then they can't produce the yarn that they want, and  they make him take the wheel back.

Thus, we have the chicken and egg problem.  Spinning classes do not teach the techniques because nobody has the equipment. And, nobody has the equipment because there was no class on how to use it. There is also the problem that not many wheel mechanics understand the equipment and can find those not obvious mechanical issues.

However, this does not absolve the high status, expert spinners. If they were really interested in moving the craft to finer, and faster, worsted spinning, they would talk about DRS and tell beginning spinners about the equipment and the additional required skills.

A gang of flier whorls of slightly different diameters (steps of 1/32") allows changing inserted twist by simply moving the drive band.  Thus, inserted twist can be held relatively constant as the effective diameter of the bobbin changes as single is wound on.

I intend to make a full set of these so I can spin any grist (twist) on bobbins with any effective diameter.  And, now I intend to start making bigger bobbins.  I did not need bigger bobbins when I was winding off frequently to prevent the effective diameter of the bobbin from changing.

Now, I can spin a full hank of a medium single without winding off.

Yippee!

Tools of the Trade

This flier/bobbin assembly inserts ~18 twist per inch. There are 20 threads per inch on the flier axle at the left so you have some scale for the yarn. (Sorry the lines between the floor tiles confuse the pix. Look at where the single crosses from one band of yarn to the next.) This flier/bobbin assembly was designed to spin 40 hanks (of 560 yard) per pound -- 22,400 ypp.   Traditionally that was a medium weight single. Prior to 1780, a spinning factory would have a whole room of spinners, spinning yarns of that weight.  And they would likely have a whole rooms of spinners, spinning 60s (34,000 ypp).  And they would have a whole room of spinners spinning "fines" -~ 40,000 ypp.  In those days, every competent spinner could spin any of those grists at commercial speed.  One thing that made that possible was the correct tools.

So when a spinner excoriates me, telling me that, "[I] am very wrong for thinking that [I] am the first to spin 30,000 ypp and that spinners in [her] region had been spinning that fine long before [I] started spinning.", she has it upside down.  I know, that in the past, essentially every hand spinner could spin 40,000 ypp singles at a commercial rate, e.g., very fast. For example, in 1580, the Dutch were buying fine wool in Spain, having it spun and woven in Flanders, and selling the (fine) finished cloth back in Spain at a good profit.   What I dislike is modern hand spinners pretending that it must be hard to spin 30,000 ypp singles. With the correct tools it is easy.

The flier is custom from Alden Amos.  I had to design and make the whorl and bobbin.  It is a reasonable grist, why can't I just buy a  DD flier -bobbin assembly from Ashford set up out of the box to spin 22,000 ypp?

No market!  Most of the  modern recreational spinners that can spin that fine are very proud of their skill and experience that allows them to use lesser tools to spin such yarn.  This gives them status in their circles, and they do not want some spinner that has only been spinning for a couple of years to use better tools and thereby spin as fine as what took them years and years to learn to spin.  (Oh, and every time I accumulate 1/4" of yarn, the effective diameter of the bobbin changes and I have to wind off.  At 20 k ypp, that is less than 100 yards, at 30 or 40 k ypp it is a lot more than 100 yards.  At lower grists, this is a real problem.)

I learned to spin fine singles on the stock Ashford DD and lace fliers, so I know it can be done. At this point, I have spun fine singles on most of the modern mass produced spinning wheels including the CPW, and have a god idea of how much effort is required to spin fine singles on the different wheels. Many of those trials were conducted with cash in my pocket to buy a better wheel.   However, spinning fine on modern wheels was so much work that I was willing to put a large effort in to finding a better way to spin such singles.

So, yesterday, I was in a roomful of very accomplished weavers ( many of whom are considered very good spinners) and I showed them that morning's work (after it had been washed, blocked, and rewound).  They wanted to know what kind of fiber allowed me to spin that fine.  (It is very generic Merino, that can be spun much, much fner.)  They asked the wrong question.  The right questions are, "What tools did you use to spin that fine? and "How long did it take you?"  (365 yards in an easy morning of spinning.)  With those tools, I can spin Romney, or Shetland, or Suffolk, that fine at almost the same rate.

Not Magic

There is a class of knitters that knit as a social pastime.  Social pastimes have conventions that function like the rules of a game.  Like a game, social pastimes have winners and losers. (see for example the work of  Eric Bern,  http://www.ericberne.com/structure-and-dynamics-of-organizations-and-groups/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_(norm) )  The pastime of recreational knitting results in some knitters acquiring higher status.  This has significant value in their circles.

One of the social conventions and contracts of modern recreational knitting is that it uses hand-held needles. The use of other technologies would allow production of  high quality knit objects with lower effort, and thereby diminish the status of  recreational knitters who produced their objects using only hand held needles. The use of other technologies is thus not allowed except in the past, in  far away places, and behind the closed doors of commercial establishments.  Breaching this convention against such other technologies is met with shunning. Advocating that others also breach this convention is met with the full spectrum of social enforcement mechanisms.  People with high status, tend to vigorously defend that status.

Mary Thomas writing in the 1930s consigned knitting sheaths to museums, even though she knew that knitting sheaths were still being used professionally because they allowed faster knitting of finer and more uniform fabrics.  Rutt interviewed elderly knitters that had swaved in the 1930s, but he made no effort to preserve the technology.  Thomas and Rutt were recreational knitters, and they conformed to the social conventions of the pastime even as they discussed other hand knitting technologies.  Gladys Thompson used a knitting sheath, but does not mention that fact in her book, Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys & Arans.  Nor does Elizabeth Zimmerman mention the fact in her 1971 Note for American Knitters, where she does talk about long needles. This was dishonest in the extreme.  Only in the context of knitting sheaths is Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys & Arans a useful book on knitting.

Thus, recreational knitters made no effort to preserve the knitting technologies that use a knitting sheath.  These were not mythical or magically ways to knit; they were real world textile production technologies in use by professionals.   We know something of what they were, and we know something of what they were not. From that information the technologies can be reverse engineered.  Come on, this is knitting, it is not rocket science.

Anybody that needs to knit a large number of objects quickly, discovers that with hand held needles, the knitter's hands get tired and their wrists get sore. Eventually the other end of the working needle gets wedged in the thigh crease or tucked into the arm pit. More advanced are pads of straw and feathers as discussed in Mary Thomas.  However, professional knitters need better tools, and leather pouches stuffed with horse hair are much better than pads of straw and feathers.  However, Mary Thomas gives straw pads and Shetland knitting pouches each a single paragraph suggesting that they are equally valuable to the modern knitter.  In this, she dismisses both, and I at least did not find her instructions for using either a knitting sheath or knitting pouch to be useful. Certainly her illustrations of how to knit are for a Weldon style of  needle management. This is not fair to the reader that needs to knit a large number of objects quickly and picks up MT hoping for hints on how it can be done.  One might use Weldon for test knitting a pattern, but a professional knitter with an order for 6 dozen pairs of hose did not to use Weldon.

MT gives knitting sheaths 3 paragraphs of their own, but there is no hint in MT that knitting sheaths in fact support 3 very different knitting technologies; one based on the pitch/yaw of a stiff needle, one based on needle flex and spring, and one based on the rotation of a curved needle.  Thomas,  Rutt, and even Brears display an astonishing lack of interest in the functional details of how knitting sheaths were used.   The only explanation is that they considered all  use of knitting sheaths and knitting pouches to be outside the social conventions of modern recreational knitting.

I am not a recreational knitter.  Some days, I am a researcher.  Some days, I am a  textile artist. Some days, I am a subsistence knitter.  And, some days, I am a professional knitter.   I am not constrained by the social conventions of knitting as a pastime. Therefore, I am free to knit with any technology necessary to produce the fabrics that I want at the rate that I need.  I am willing to talk over the heads of all the  modern recreational knitters to other researchers, artists, subsistence knitters and professional knitters.  I want others to be able to knit better, and knit faster. I want others to know that there are a variety of hand knitting technologies.

One of those knitting technologies is based on the "roll" (rotation) of  a short, stiff, curved, blunt knitting needle with the axis of the roll fixed by one end of the needle inserted into the bore of a knitting sheath. A short forward stroke followed by a back stroke comprises the knitting technique that I call "swaving".  Details of needle and knitting sheath design and materials make the technology more functional, but do not change the name.  However, as I review the account of the invention of the knitting frame and the resulting mechanics of  frame knitting, it is likely that it was based on a knitting motion resulting from the rotation of curved needles.  Thus, circa 1590, what I call swaving was likely also known as "knitting".

As  S. M. McGee-Russell told us on the first day of class, "Everything has a proper name.  Use it!  If you find something without a proper name; name it, and write a paper."  If you go for a walk, you are likely to see plants and critters.  Most have species names, but finding those species names may take some work and require specialized knowledge.   Knitting by rotating the working needle has a name, and knitters that know their craft can figure it out.  The knitters that only knit as a social pastime are unwilling to say what swaving was, and what swaving was not.  They want swaving to be something very vague, that cannot occur today.  This is logically equivalent to asserting that swaving (was) a mystical, magical activity.   

Flier Whorls

For the last hundred years or so, DD flier and bobbin whorls have had "V" and "U" drive band grooves respectively.  This worked with the typical DRS of 1.2 and  the resulting required slippage.  The "V" groove in the flier whorl makes precise DRS for very fine threads more difficult.

With a precise DRS, much less slippage is required and the  drive band grooves can both be "U" shaped to facilitate  precise DRS for very fine threads.

This is a bit of a problem with Ashford Fliers, but Alden Amos's fliers use a threaded connection between the flier axle and the flier whorl.  This makes it easy for the home mechanic.  Anybody with a small wool lathe can make a new flier whorl to go with their home made bobbins.

From right to left, a piece of board sawn cherry, a 5/16"steel threaded insert with an Allen head set screw in it, set screw with cap nut and washer, whorl blank turn round, and a finished whorl.

The board is bored with a ~25/64" hole, and the threaded inset screwed in using wood glue as a lubricant. The cap nut and washer allow the set screw to be used as a turning mandrel.  (Cap nut in 3-jaw chuck, tail stock center in depression in end of set screw.) Turn the blank.

To finish the groove, I use a scraper ground from a high quality HSS skew chisel. The cutting edge used to produce the bottom of the "U" should be very sharp.

Finished assembly and some 5,000 ypp worsed Cotswold single from this morning's spinning.

Math for calculating dimensions is in Alden Amos's,  Big Book Handspinning.

A recipe for belt dressing is also in BBH.

I just noticed how dirty my spinning wheel is.  (It is dirty, but it has been oiled every hour during use.)  I will clean and wax it real soon now.  These days, my wax for all wooden tools is equal weights of walnut oil and bees wax melted together.  It is non-toxic and it drys to a water and alcohol proof finish that does not yellow.   However, this mix does take a while to dry.

The Circus goes to Jackson

Recently, I taught Stephenie Gaustad to swave.  (I was at Studio Gaustad for something else.) She is a very busy lady.  She would not bother learning a new knitting technique unless it produced a fabric that she liked, and that she could not produce in any other way.  She requested that I come up to the house and show the process to Alden. (He does not knit anymore, but he was a great knitter.)  He is always my toughest critic, and of course he knows more about the various processes and technologies of making textiles by hand than anybody.  His comment was, "Why aren't you using hand spun?"

Both of them like the produced fabrics, and said they was not like any fabrics that they had seen. (And they have both seen my gansey knit fabrics, which are also very tightly knit.)  Both like the speed of production.

Fine fabric at a high rate of production.  If it is not swaving, then it is a new process that I invented and I can patent it.  Then, soon everybody would be trying to void the patent by claiming that it was just swaving.  And, they would be correct.  The tools are right, the motions are right, and the produced  fabrics are right. for it to be swaving.

Alden reminded me that "Kersey" at various times referred to a frame knit fabric.  Perhaps not in 1746, but at some times, Kersey was a knit a fabric. Maybe, I was not as wrong as the mice said.

Motions of a Knitting Needle

A knitting needle is really a lever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever) for moving loops of yarn. 

A knitting needle's position in space can be described by its pitch, yaw, and roll.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_principal_axes)   The needle changes pitch, yaw, and roll by rotation around a center of  rotation (or the fulcrum point, when the needle is considered as a lever).  Thus, a change in pitch allows both ends of the needle to describe arcs in space while the center of rotation has zero motion vector in space.  And a needle can vector in space without changing its pitch, yaw, or roll.   When a straight needle rolls, there is no apparent motion, but when a bent needle rolls, one or both ends of the needle describe arcs in space.

Moreover, a knitting needle can flex.

Now:
1)  The motions of a hand held held knitting needle are those of a class 1 lever, and limited to pitch and yaw, and the applied leverage is about 1:3.

2)  With a knitting stick and short, stiff, straight needles,  the motions are still limited to pitch and yaw, but the fulcrum is at the cow band, so it is a  class 3 lever with and the applied leverage is in the range of  1:20 to 1:40.  This takes a lot of stress off of the hands when knitting tight sock fabrics.

3)  With a knitting pouch,  long, straight, needles act as class 3 levers, and the traditional needles provide leverage of 1:40. With short needles the leverage is more like 1:20.  A common use is to reduce the stress allowing sustained knitting.

4)  In gansey knitting, the long needles flex, store energy, and that energy is then returned to the knitting stitch.  The effective leverage is very high e.g., (1:50)  This allows sustained knitting of very tight fabrics.

5) Swaving is different because the needle rolls. In swaving, one leg of the working stitch acts as one fulcrum, the knitting sheath acts as another fulcrum to produce a compound lever as the needle rolls.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_lever).The effective leverage is very high e.g., ( more than 1:50)  This allows sustained knitting of very tight/ fine fabrics.

6)  In the various methods of knitting that use hooks, the needles vector, and there is essentially no useful leverage.  The motion is driven by the large muscles of the shoulders and upper arms, so it is a powerful motion that can produce very tight fabrics, but no mechanical advantage is gained.

Thus, in fact, there are 6 different hand knitting motions that competent knitters understand.  Each knitting motion has virtues and vices, which need to be understood.  Knitting sticks, knitting pouches, and knitting sheaths provide additional leverage for knitting fabrics that  cannot be reasonably knit with hand held needles by even the strongest and most expert knitters.  Anyone that thinks that knitting with 1:3 leverage can produce all the fabrics that knitting with 1:50 leverage can produce, simply does not understand the basic physics of their craft. 

When the Victorian Ladies of fashion established knitting as a leisure pastime (as distinct from a professional craft) they set the social conventions of the pastime.  Every pastime from cricket to horse racing and grouse hunting has social conventions.  One of the social conventions of knitting as a pastime was that both needles must be hand held. This did away with professional knitting techniques   All modern knitting needles from Faberge to Signature to the various cable needles, all have the same leverage.  Long (gansey) needles, used as hand held needles still have the same leverage, and provide no advantage.  Any knitter that used a knitting sheath or knitting stick was not considered a person of fashion.  If you wanted to use a knitting pouch or knitting sheath, you had to do it behind the closed doors of a commercial establishment or live someplace like Shetland.

This social convention limited the leverage available to the leisure knitter. It provided a level playing field, the difference in quality between any two samples of knitting was the skill of the knitter, and a knitter could not use different tools to knit better.  This social convention took knitting technology off the table. The mind set that knitting technology does not matter persists. 

Getting to swaving

Some seem to feel that what I do is either an arrogant lie or an accident.

No it a matter of taking some clue out of history and working on it until I come up with something useful.

Perhaps the Holy Grail was "swaving".  (After," How did the old fishermen on the banks stay warm?)  My grandmother told stories of very fine, hand knit, camel, ladies gloves.  And. we had limited information on the Terrible Knitters of the Dales swaving fine gloves.  The hints were tantalizing, but,  "What was the truth?" What was the technique?

Clearly the needle rotated in the knitting sheath.  This makes swaving dramatically different from any other modern hand knitting technique. Lever knitting was based on needle pitch / yaw motions. In contrast, swaving was based on  needle rotation.

So I bent some DPNs and tried it. The fabric was wonderful, but the process was so high effort that a 2" by 2" swatch knit in an evening would leave my hands stiff and sore for days.  For several years, I could not find a needle configuration that reduced the effort. I could produce wonderful fabric, but the effort was impossible.  I came to believe that swaving was inherently, a high effort activity, and that the high effort required was why it disappeared.  I was wrong.

Then, I saw a glover's needle in a museum collection that was obviously used for swaving and I made a set of replicas.  They worked - for glove fingers. All of a sudden, swaving (glove fingers) was an easy and low effort way to knit. Scaling that needle/sheath geometry to longer needles suitable for socks and glove cuffs and palms was matter of many generations of needles over a period of 3 years. So, when I say that I can "swave" it is not the result of  one trial or a few trials, it is the result of many trials, and taking many little baggies of swatches to many guild show and tells.

 Everyone is so accustomed to knitting being a pitch/yaw motion, that their eyes are fooled, and nobody sees the rotation of the needle in  swaving.  No wonder Rutt did not see it. It is an optical illusion, and I must apologize to Rutt.

 Here is a pictorial history of the tools I have tried and abandoned, to the tools that I currently use:

Note that the needles that work well have their bend about 2" from the end of the needle.

The needles that I currently use are about as blunt as possible. This goes against current thinking that one needs sharp needles to knit fast. Needles that work very well have just enough bend to fit snugly in 3/4" pipe, regardless of the length of the needle.  Needles that work best are less then 8" long.  My glove needles are 4" long with the bend in the middle.  Thus, the glover's needles have a sharper bend.

Today, swaving is my preferred way to knit. It produces a very nice fabric (with ridges when knitting back and forth). It is very fast.  It is very easy on the hands  It is very low effort.  The needles are compact and blunt (read as "safe in a knitting bag").  The bent needles (pricks) tend not to leave ladders, even in sock fingers.  And, it is very easy to  knit firm (weatherproof)  fabrics from even very fine yarns. Thus, the technique is ideal for gloves and socks. Today, I have, and use swaving needles down to 1.2 mm.

In contrast, gansey knitting with long straight needles and a knitting sheath is a fast and easy way to knit large objects such as sweaters.  Gansey knitting is for objects involving cabling, bobbles, and lace. Gansey needles  are long, and sharp enough to slide right through most knitting bags and poke holes in anything that might be precious or valuable.  On the other hand, when you must knit a very warm sweater, very fast, gansey needles with a knitting sheath are tool of choice.  And one can knit back and forth without ridges.  :  )

A sock and glove kit that is going to a friend next week. 

(I am moving from storing needles in irrigation pipe to storing needles in acrylic tubing.)  

Wangs

Back in days when every law office had a Wang word processor, I was working for a large engineering firm with a large group doing environmental work.  They did not put me in the environmental group, but in the legal group drawing up the work contracts for the environmental group.  That was reasonable, RCRA and CERCLA were important to the contracts, but outside of the contract lawyers areas of expertise.  So I sat in the law group between the Wangs and the files.

Every lawyer in the SF Complex with an emergency project would first run to either the Wangs or the files.  They would see me, and if I did not look like my hair was on fire, I would get pulled into whatever emergency had been dumped in their lap.  Thus, at some point I have worked on most of the legal topics that might come up in a global engineering firm. A popular topic was intellectual property and copyright.

I have been accused of  copyright violations with respect to Brears.  If we look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom#Works_eligible_for_protection, we see:

UK copyright law has a set of exceptions to copyright known as fair dealing. Database right has a similar set of exceptions. Fair dealing is much more restricted than the American concept of fair use. It only applies in tightly defined situations, and outside those situations it is no defence at all against a lawsuit for copyright (or database right) infringement.

s29.—(1) Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical, etc, work, for the purpose of research for a non-commercial purpose, does not infringe any copyright in the work, provided it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement of the source.

s30.—(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism or review, of that or another work, or of a performance of a work, does not infringe copyright in the work, provided it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement, and provided the work has actually been made available to the public.

My use was strictly limited to non-commercial research on the actual function of knitting sheaths, and the source / author fully acknowledged. Thus, I am compliant with UK copyright law. Brears' material was never published in the US and there is no reservation of US copyright.  Thus, I am compliant with US copyright law.  See also http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Swaving tools

My current swaving/glove knitting tool kit, and works in progress.

As I go through the kit, all the needles (pricks) are between 4" and 6.5" long sized from US1 to US000.
Longer and finer pricks have been weeded out.

Beginners or Experts?

Who should I make tools for?

I have always made the tools that I like. Some of my first needles were polished like jewels. They were slippery and I found them unpleasant to use. So early on I found that annular striations around the tip facilitated a gansey needle pulling a loop of yarn through a stitch. This made it easy for me to learn to use gansey needles with a knitting sheath.

Over the last few years I have become a better knitter. I can now use gansey needles with highly polished tips.

Last night, I picked up a set of the old gansey needles with the annular striations around the tip. I happily used those needles to knit a gansey in 9 days a few years ago, but now I find that I can knit faster without the   annular striations. This morning, those needle tips are smooth and polished. A beginner would find them hard or impossible to use. If I had been presented with those polished needle tips when I was beginning, I would have given up in despair  However, now I want something faster.

When one is making specialized tools, how does one compromise the needs of the beginner with the needs of the expert?

Makers of wood turning tools have a similar dilemma.  Wood is abrasive, and even the best wood turning tools have to be resharpened frequently.  Does one tell one's (new) customers how to get the best professional edge, or do you tell them they can do a "good enough" job of sharpening with a bench grinder?

Robert Sorby stands up and says, "This is how we recommend that our tools be sharpened."  It is an approach that requires a large capital investment, but results in a very high quality edge, saves tool material, and saves time.  Hamlet on the other hand, declines to make a definitive statement about how to sharpen Hamlet tools, and mumbles something about bench grinders being "good enough", fast, and inexpensive.  I feel sorry for owners of Hamlet tools that are not informed as to the best practice for sharpening HSS.

In wood turning, the burr raised by a bench grinder is ephemeral and will quickly be worn away by the wood it is cutting.

Any burr that can be raised  on a HSS scraper edge with a manual burnisher is ephemeral and will quickly be worn away by the wood it is cutting.  The cutting edge of a HSS scraper edge with a burr raised by a manual burnisher is not as sharp as a HSS scraper cutting edge honed with a diamond card.  This is a combination of tool engineering, metallurgy, and physics. I am amazed that people that would rather work with dull(er) tools than admit that I am correct.

Yes, it takes longer to sharpen a wood turning tool with a fine, slow speed, wet grinder, but the cutting edge lasts much longer than the cutting edge produced with a bench grinder.  So the slower sharpening system actually saves time in the course of a full day of high end wood turning. And since less tool material is removed, the very expensive turning tools last longer.  Thus, over all the system is less expensive.  The even more capital intensive Sorby system removes even less of the wood turning tool, and thus for somebody doing a lot of wood turning, the Sorby approach is even less expensive, because the big cost in wood turning is the cost of the wood turning tools that are ground away in sharpening.

Wood turning tools do not need to be hollow ground.  In fact, flat ground bevels are less likely to catch, and stronger. And, flat wood turning chisels with flat bevels last longer.

On the other hand, a bench grinder will very quickly produce a reasonable edge. And just as quickly, it will grind that expensive HSS into a pile of worthless gray powder.  Then, Hamlet can sell another set of  expensive HSS tools.

Better clew and knitting support

Better clew (for center pull cake) and better arrangement for knitting support.

The big clip-swivel is heavy, but handy, and can be found at any place that sells key chains.

Swaving has ridges

Swaved fabric knit back and forth has ridges.Above, you see them on the front and back of a gauge swatch and the heel flaps of a pair of boot socks (one inside out).

Can the ridges be avoided - not likely as everything I can think of tends to make them more prominent. Nor do they seem to want to disappear with blocking.

Keystone XL Draft SSIS

Comments on:

United States Department of State

Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SSIS)

For the

KEYSTONE XL PROJECT

Applicant for Presidential Permit:

TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LP

Project site with full text of all documents:    http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/

General:

The decision on the Keystone XL permit should be made on a variety of considerations, one of which is environmental concerns.  The NEPA documents prepared by United States Department of State (DOS) on this issue fail to provide a balanced analysis of environmental issues.  The President of the United States (POTUS) may decide that other considerations overwhelm any and all environmental considerations, but that is no excuse for DOS to provide a deeply flawed Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SSIS) to POTUS as decision support.

The Draft SSIS does not present balanced analysis of environmental issues related to the decision to permit or not permit.  It appears that the DOS was outside of its area of expertise in the management of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process and development of the Draft SSIS.  This has allowed the oil industry and its contractor (ERM) to manage the DOS, rather than the DOS managing the content of the document.  As this document stands, it demonstrates that DOS cannot resist the influence oil companies, including oil companies of foreign states, to prepare a balanced, fact based, decision support document on a topic of great importance to the US.

A failure to produce a NEPA compliant Environmental Impact Study would open the entire decision to judicial review, even if the final decision was based on non-environmental considerations.

Specific issues are as follows:

1       The market analysis makes it appear the oil reserves will be exploited whether or not the permit is granted.  This issue cannot be factually determined without a global analysis of refining capacity, which the document does not supply. Moreover, the document does not consider the options of the Department of State (DOS) or President of the United States (POTUS) such as specific conditions on the pipeline permit.  Failure to consider DOS/POTUS options rather than (purported) oil industry options make the document non-compliant with NEPA.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires an analysis of the environmental impacts the entire life-cycle of the KEYSTONE XL PROJECT.  That includes carbon emissions and affects on climate change and global warming.  The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) for every unit of useful l energy is critical to this analysis. The mining of tar sand bitumen uses more energy and releases more CO2 than the production of conventional crude.  The mining process releases significant amounts of CH4. And the refining of diluted bitumen (dilbit) produced to allow transport of tar sands material through unheated pipelines into consumer fuels is more energy intensive than the refining of conventional crude oil. The life cycle production and release of greenhouse gases to produce a unit of energy is not addressed. 

3     Total cost per unit of energy will determine how much of the Alberta Tar Sands are mined.  If the pipeline is not approved then the price of energy from the Alberta Tar sands will be higher, and less used in the near term.  In the near term without the pipeline, we will use more conventional oil, which results in much lower greenhouse gas emissions per unit of recovered energy.   The entire analysis of alternative transport options (rail) available to the Alberta tar sands industry is a diversion.  The NEPA analysis of options should have been an analysis of options available to the POTUS/DOS.   This was not done.  A review of possible industry responses such as transport by rail should have been included as an appendix to provide POTUS/DOS staff with insight as to possible oil industry responses to the decision made by POTUS. The analysis of possible industry responses should have analysis such as global refinery capacity to provide POTUS/DOD staff with useful knowledge as to which industry responses are potentially real, and which has been offered up by the oil industry as bluster and bluff to push POTUS toward a decision allowing greater oil industry profits.

4      The Draft SSIS lumps conventional crude oil, synthetic crude oil, and dilbit together as being similar in composition and quality to the crude oils currently transported in pipelines in the US and being refined in Gulf Coast.  However, while these different fluids may behave similarly (in the short term) while in a pipe or tank, after release (spill, leak) into the environment, they have different fate and transport behaviors, and very different environmental toxicity.    In particular, spills of conventional crude and dilbit behave very differently when spilled into water.  The authors of the Draft SSIS seem intent on avoiding any discussion of the fate and transport of dilbit in the environment or the environmental toxicology of dilbit. The Draft SSIS contains no information on the toxicology of dilbit. The SSIS should disclose the environmental fate and transport mechanisms  and environmental toxicity of dilbit in detail.

And, the truth is that because dilbit is more corrosive and erosive in pipeline systems, over the practical lifespan of the system, spills are more likely.  This is one of the lessons learned from the operation of dilbit pipelines in the US that needs to be addressed in detail in the SSIS.

         The Draft SSIS is not compliant with NEPA as it does not address likely impacts of the ongoing operation of the pipeline.  In particular, long term leaks seeping into aquifers are ignored.   For example, hazardous material spills during construction are addressed in more detail as a diversion from the more serious issue of spills during operation of the pipeline.  While hazardous materials spills during pipeline construction are frequently more numerous, they are generally small.  And, there are generally some leaks and spills during pipeline startup, but everybody is alert, and these are caught quickly and remain small.  It is after years of pipeline operation that significant leaks and spills develop.  The Draft SSIS deals with the hazardous materials (hazmat) spill issues during construction by including “boilerplate“ of generic oil infrastructure construction procedures without an warranty from the pipeline constructor that such procedures will be followed .  This is not informative as there is no warranty that such procedures will be followed.  In fact, the inclusion of such materials suggests that ERM has a relationship and conflict of interest with potential pipeline constructor(s).  The Draft SSIS glosses the engineering basis of design for leak detection, leak prevention, and spill cleanup of spills from the sustained operation of the pipeline.   The Draft SSIS does not recommend procedures for the sustained operation of the pipeline.  One option of POTUS not addressed in the Draft SSIS is to set specific engineering basis of design for leak detection, leak prevention, and spill cleanup of spills from the sustained operation of the pipeline.  Another option of POTUS not addressed in the Draft SSIS is to set specific procedures for the sustained operation of the pipeline.  These two POTUS options are not addressed in the Draft SSIS.

        NEPA requires determination of environmental impact, which may be different from mere compliance with US - Department of Transportation (USDOT) regulations.  At the very least, The SSIS should include a list of lessons learned from recent dilbit spills from pipelines operating under current USDOT regulations.  Pipelines are not a “build and forget infrastructure.”

8      The route of the pipeline crosses large, high value aquifers, and the underground placement of the pipeline makes leak monitoring difficult.  Given the unstated environmental fate and transport of dilbit and the unstated environmental toxicology of dilbit, sustained, low rate releases of dilbit into these aquifers could result in catastrophic damage to these aquifers for which no response or cleanup technology is stated in the Draft SSIS. Given current technologies, response and cleanup of such an event is not possible. Given the physics and chemistry of the situation, no reasonable response and cleanup technology is likely to be developed.  This issue has been acknowledged in Nebraska where the route of the pipeline has been changed, but the topic needs to be addressed in detail where the pipeline is proposed to be buried over valuable aquifers.   For the SSIS to gloss this issue is to make a mockery of the whole NEPA concept.  A reasonable option to the POTUS would be to require the placement of the pipeline above ground and make secondary containment with leak detection a requirement of the permit. Or, POTUS could allow placement of the pipeline underground, but require secondary containment and fail safe leak detection.  This is a good example of where NEPA requirements for review of (POTUS/DOS) options are ignored in the Draft SSIS.  POTUS is not limited by what will make the most money for Transcanda and tar sands oil producers.  POTUS can do what is best for US interests.

9      The market analysis neglects refinery capacity.  While it would be possible to ramp up rail capacity to move the bitumen to some port rather rapidly, the permitting, design, and construction of additional refinery capacity is much slower.  The tar sand oil industry could transport the bitumen to the Pacific Coast, but then, where would they refine that material at a reasonable cost? The proposed pipeline is small by current standards because there is not enough excess refinery capacity in the Gulf to justify building a larger and more expensive pipeline at this time.  In addition, the Draft SSIS neglects to mention that the Chinese national oil company (Sinopec Group) is a large (49%) owner of Talisman Energy and other tar sands oil producers.  Korean and Japanese oil companies have also invested in tar sands production capacity. The Draft  SSIS market analysis does not mention that Pacific Rim countries control much of the oil going into the pipeline, increasing the likelihood of the refined oil passed through the US and being sold in Europe, so that other supplies will be available to Asia. See for example:  http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Following-Keystone-Rejection-Canadas-Oil-Sands-Headed-to-China.html  However, the market analysis of the Draft SSIS relates to oil industry responses to the option selected by POTUS and not to the options available to POTUS.  Thus, the industries’ alternate transportation options belong in an appendix as background reading for DOS/POTUS staff. 

1      The Draft SSIS market analysis is more of an advocacy argument than a balanced analysis. And, in fact many of ERM’s customers have a financial interest in the Keystone pipeline, even if the exact names do not appear on contracts with ERM.  In fact, the original EIS contractor, Entrix, had an undisclosed conflict of interest resulting from a task order agreement Entrix had with BP, when BP owned substantial interests in ConocoPhillips, Talisman Energy, and other Alberta tar sands oil producers.   BP became Entrix’s largest and most profitable client during the time when the Keystone XL EIS document was being prepared. Thus, DOS does not have a history of being able to monitor its contractors on this project. There are a huge number of companies, partners, owners, and subsidiaries of companies that own interests in Alberta tar sand oil production that will benefit from Keystone XL; and ERM does business with many of these oil companies.  Oil companies have used their lobbyists to influence politicians in favor of the pipeline.  Oil companies have used public relations firms to sway the public in favor of the pipeline, in part by saying it will reduce US fuel costs.  For example, BP was saying the Keystone XL pipeline would reduce US fuel prices even as it was selling its stake in Talisman Energy (a large Alberta tar sands oil producer) to Sinopec Group  – the Chinese national oil company.    It does not appear that DOS has appreciated the potential organizational conflicts of interest, lobby efforts, and well funded public relations campaigns supported by the oil companies.  It appears that the DOS is prepared to put their institutional stamp of approval on one-sided oil company propaganda.

1     The Draft SSIS averages away the impacts of climate change.  For infrastructure basis of engineering design, climate change results in a fat tailed probability distribution of extreme events. Climate change increases the probability of extreme weather events that are greater than the structure is engineered to withstand.  Climate change has raised the average sea level only a few millimeters, but it has enabled extreme events such as Katrina, Isabel, Isaac, and Sandy.  It was not the average sea level rise that caused the damage, but the extreme events.  Likewise it is not average temperature that will damage engineered structures such as a pipeline, but extreme heat events that are outside of the basis of engineering design.   Likewise, it is not average precipitation over the next 30 years that will damage engineered structures; it is the extreme precipitation events made possible by extended climate change and the resulting changes in atmospheric circulation.  The most extreme of these events are likely to come after the corrosive and erosive properties of dilbit have acted on the pipeline for decades, and the pipeline is more fragile. The Draft SSIS is silent on these issues.   

Brear's Fig 5 modernized

Here are pix of my current working clew and knitting holder:

On the left is the knitting sheath with WIP  boot sock for me (2x2 ribbing in cuff is just over 6" long) from last night showing the knitting holder that I would use if the knitting got heavy.  (Swaving is more sensitive to the weight of the knit object than gansey knitting.)

On the right is a clew to hold my yarn off the ground for knitting out and about. You can see how a whittler that did not knit might whittle out the objects in Brear's Fig 5 to replace these apparently make shift approaches.  Really the only key element is the fishing swivel between the yellow twine and the blue stitch holder.

Does one need a clew and knitting holder?  I find knitting with a sheath and straight needles to be much more difficult while walking than knitting with hand held needles while walking. Thus, I had substantially given up trying to knit while walking.  Swaving (with needle rotating in the knitting sheath) changes all that. Swaving while walking is easier than knitting with hand held needles while walking.  This forces a reconsideration of the whole knitting while out and about paradigm.  I can knit in more places, and I knit faster, so I have to carry more yarn.

The other issue is that swaving needles tend to corrode faster than gansey needles. I think this is because swaving is easier on my hands than gansey knitting, and therefore I use less hand lotion.  It may be that my hand lotion helps protect the gansey needles.

Mystery Solved.

There are a couple of companies in England that sell "gansey knitting kits".  They include pattern, yarn, and long needles.  They do not like me saying there is an easier way to knit a gansey.  It seems that my sales have cut into their sales, or they are afraid that I will cut into their sales.  That is ridiculous.

I do not sell patterns.  I do not sell yarn.  And, my needles are much more expensive (plus shipping) than their needles.We are not competitors.  On the other hand, a lot of my customers are in the UK.

I do not sell gansey knitting kits.  I sell ways to knit better fabrics.  I sell ways to knit faster.  I sell ways to knit with less fatigue.  I do not care if you buy the tools that I make, or if you make the tools yourself.  I just want people to knit better, faster, and easier.  I would be very happy if those English companies sold knitting sheaths - either ones that I make, or if they do a good job - knitting sheaths that they make.

If they would take over the making / selling of knitting sheaths, then I could go do something else.  But they likely want to make money, and there is not much money in knitting sheaths so they would likely abandon the market - again.  Selling knitting sheaths (and the idea of knitting sheaths) is important, so somebody needs to do it, but it does not have to be me.