Twist

Twist is inserted when one end of a string is rotated relative to the other end of the string.

The string is tied to a spindle, the spindle goes round, the spinner holds the other end of the string, and twist is inserted.

String is tied to the spindle on a great wheel, the wheel/spindle goes round, the spinner holds other end, and twist is inserted. A bobbin on the spindle makes no difference.  If the string is tied to the bobbin, the bobbin goes round and twist is inserted when the spinner holds the other end.

On a flyer/ bobbin assembly, the string is tied to the bobbin.  When the spinner holds one end of the string, then twist is inserted when the bobbin goes round.  The flyer is not tied to the string. The flyer cannot insert twist unless the bobbin rotates.  The bobbin and flyer may rotate together, but it is the bobbin that is fixed to the end of the string; and therefor,

it is the bobbin that inserts twist.  

If the flyer rotates, but the bobbin does not, then string is wound onto the bobbin, but no net twist is inserted.

(Some small amount of twist will be inserted, but this is NOT enugh to hold the yarn together, so no actual yarn is formed. If no yarn is formed, then the bobbin is simply rotating in space, and there is no yarn to accept the twist, and "spinning" does not occur.)

If the bobbin rotates but the flier does not, then twist will be inserted, at the rate of one twist per effective circumference of the bobbin.  One twist per per effective circumference of the bobbin is not likely enough twist to make a competent yarn.  It may not be enough to even hold a soft roving together.

Confusion comes when the rotation of the flyer causes the bobbin to rotate (via yarn lock.)  In this case, the flyer drives the rotation of the bobbin, but it is the rotation of the end of the string tied to the bobbin that causes the insertion of the twist. If rather than a mass of fiber, filaments are passed through the flyer, then it can insert some small amount of twist. However, with normal fiber this is not enough twist to form a yarn, so there is no yarn to accept the twist.

One end of the string is held by the spinner, and the other end of the string is tied to the bobbin.   Only rotation of the bobbin or rotation of the spinner (or the counter rotation of both) can insert enough  net twist to form yarn from fiber.

Twist is the essence of spinning.  If one does not understand twist, then one does not understand spinning.

Skeins

Spinners produce skeins so the yarn can be easily judged. In the past, skeins allowed the factors and weavers to judge the quality of the yarn that a spinner was producing.  However, what really matters is the appearance and function of  the fabric(s) produced from the yarn.

Judging a skein of yarn in the skein at a show is like judging a hunting dog or a sheep dog in a show ring.  The only way to really judge such dogs is to watch them hunt or work sheep.  Judged in the ring, you are likely to come up with a "champion" sheep dog that is pretty, but can't work sheep.  And, a sheep dog that cannot work sheep is not a sheep dog, it is just a pet.

Yarn must be judged by how it performs in a fabric, and the intended use of the fabric must be known. Yarn for a sweater is different from yarn for gloves.  And, yarn for matching sweater and gloves is another set of compromises depending on how the outfit will be used.  No! that is the mind set of a knitter using commercial yarn.  A hand spinner can make soft sweater yarn, and durable glove yarns that match.

I have been sampling yarn for gloves.  The soft yarn's do not wear well at the finger tips. The yarns that wear well at the fingertips, tend to feel harsh at the cuff. Certainly it is also an issue with socks, but it is more an issue with gloves.  This brings up the idea of spinning different, but matching yarns for cuffs and  areas of high wear.

Mostly transitions from one fiber type to another are visible where the transition is abrupt.  However, the hand spinner can make such transitions gradual and very much less apparent.  That is, suppose it is desired to put more Romney in the fiber blend over the heel and toes of a sock to increase durability. The hand spinner can change the blend over a length of  the yarn that will result in a inch of knitting, so that in the finished object, the transition from one fiber blend to another is not noticeable.  In a skein, that transition from one fiber blend to another would look like crap.   In the finished object it looks like magic. It is a touch of true craftsmanship.

The math of spinning for weaving

One of the things that I have been persistently ridiculed over is my search for ways to spin faster.

However, lets think about hand woven cloth form hand spun yarn.  A garment weight cloth is 10 or 12 ounces per yard, and a traditional English bolt of cloth is 12 yards, or 144 oz or 9 pounds. If the yarn is 10s (5,600 ypp) then a bolt cloth will contain 90 hanks or ~50,000 yards.

With a wheel ratio of 1:12, a treadle rate of 90, you can spin about 150 yards (of 10s) per hour that comes to ~334 hours of spinning.    With a faster wheel a spinning rate of 370 yards per hour is reasonable and it is only 135 hours or 3 hours a day for 7 weeks to spin the yarn for a bolt of cloth.

Spinning fast is better.  This is why I want fast spindles. This is why I am willing to work a little harder to spin much faster.

Skeins? It is faster and easier for me to store yarn as cakes, bobbins, and cones. For knitting, I wash and block the yarn on reels, and put it up as center pull  cakes. For weaving, I wash, block, and put the yarn on little bobbins that each hold an ounce of  yarn. With 50 such bobbins, I can wind 2" of warp at a time.  There is just no way in world to juggle 50 skeins of yarn while winding on to the loom.

Spinning with a spindle

There is a story going around that I cannot spin with a spindle. It is libel.

I have even taught spinning with a spindle at some of the local spinning guilds "learn to spin" booths, including a couple of years at Stitches West.  Later, a friend who is a very fine spinner wanted a travel wheel for a trip to Southern Europe. Together, we shopped for a wheel, but decided that a set of spindles designed for the kinds of fine yarns that she wanted to spin would actually allow her to spin faster than any of the commercially available travel wheels.  So, I undertook to design suitable spindles for her.  I spent a few hundred hours getting good at spinning with a drop spindle. I used a drop spindle to spin miles of "fines".  I learned to spin fine and fast.   And, I started making spindles for spinning fine and fast. There were at least 4 distinct generations of design as my increasing skill informed my spindle design, and better spindle design allowed better spinning. The last couple of  generations of these spindles are so fast that they require the use of a distaff to permit drafting fast enough to keep up with the spindles.

A set of the Third Generation spindles was stolen and passed around fiber groups in Ohio. I expect that those spinners tried to spin 2,000 ypp singles rather than the 22,000 - 30,000  ypp singles that the spindles were designed to spin. Thus, the spindles did not work well, and the spinners did not like those spindles.  They, decided that anyone that made such spindles must not know how to spin.  And they posted such nonsense.

(I allowed the spindles to be stolen because I already had G4 spindles that were better, and I wanted to see if those spinners were honest.)

The Fall collection

We happened to be in Needless Markup as some of the fall designer collections came in.

It looks like this year there are going to be some very nice, fine wool pants.  We have not seen such fabrics in ages.  A real inspiration for the weavers. Here we can see why in the old days, spinners learned to spin fine.  It was to make the yarn for such fabrics


Ladies and Gentlemen,   Wax Your Fly Shuttles!

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.