Monday, March 21, 2011

More Plies

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How many plies does it take to make a good knitting yarn? More! Modern knitters have forgotten that more plies are warmer and more durab...
1 comment:
Monday, March 14, 2011

A gansey by any other name

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I have been going through old sources on knitting, looking at what they made, what the material was, and what they called it. The results ha...
Sunday, February 27, 2011

How long did it take to make a Seaman's sweater?

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When I first asserted that knit "sweaters" were a regular part of a seaman's regular wear, I was told that they took too long ...
Friday, February 25, 2011

Cable needles and knitting sheaths

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Single point needles and cable needles do not work with knitting sheaths. At one point, I put a lot effort into thinking about ways it co...
5 comments:
Friday, January 14, 2011

Virtues of Scotch Tension

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Previously, I noted that Double Drive (DD) spinning wheels can go faster because they have two drive bands to transmit that power from the d...
9 comments:
Sunday, January 09, 2011

A New Twist on Lace Fliers

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I came to spinning not as a spinner, but as a person interested in yarns that I could not get from commercial sources. As a good student, I...
9 comments:
Monday, December 06, 2010

Modern Knitting as Art

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Back in art school, I learned that: Art is something that makes people think about their world. In general, art is a non-functional represen...
5 comments:

In the Begining

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I wore a very nice hand knit fisherman's sweater, and I about froze, so I asked the question, “How did the old fishermen stay warm?” As...
3 comments:
Monday, November 22, 2010

I got it wrong on spindles

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I looked at videos of Peruvian spinners, and thought they were using the Berber spiral groove on their bottom whorl spinners. They were not...
1 comment:
Sunday, November 07, 2010

The state of yarn

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Knitters talk about how warm a lace shawl is -- that is silly.  Lace shawls are only "warm" in the context of a very mild environ...
8 comments:
Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Drop spindles do gansey yarn

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Spindles for testing A friend, who is a very experienced spinner with a large collection of good spinning equipment, "demanded"...
7 comments:

Why 5-ply?

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Alden Amos says in his, Big Book of Handspinning, that there is no reason to spin 5-ply yarns. In fact, 5-ply yarns are more supple for th...
2 comments:
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Handspun gansey yarn

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I have not posted for a bit, because I was learning to spin my own gansey yarn. I had been told that NOBODY ever spun gansey yarn by hand ...
2 comments:
Sunday, July 11, 2010

An apology about waterproofing wool

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A couple of years ago, a yarn supplier told me that a drop of baby oil would oil ,and waterproof wool. I tried it, and it has worked very we...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 10, 2010

hand spun gansey yarn

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I just passed a milestone and had something of an epiphany. I am working with Cotswold, spinning and swatching for a gansey. I had been wor...
6 comments:

Two Ply, Three Ply, More Ply

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I have been hand spinning classic gansey yarn from traditional British long wool fleece. The extreme fineness of the singles that I had to s...
Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Adapters

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There were places I had to go, and things I had to say (in other places). Then, I had to learn to use my new spinning wheel. Then, I had to ...
4 comments:
Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Nothing in the mud?!

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How many knitted seaman’s frocks would YOU expect to find from the medieval period? We will not know that there were medieval ganseys unless...
6 comments:
Saturday, February 27, 2010

New technology needles

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I have been admiring and praising the Hya-Hya DPN for knitting softer spun yarns on the basis of some hand knitting at a show. These are ver...
3 comments:
Sunday, February 21, 2010

Citations

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I do not give many citations. Suppose I cite British customs taxes from the 14 th century? The few folks that would go to London and check t...
4 comments: