Friday, September 30, 2011

quick kniddy noddy

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Not a love token  but it works, it fits in the spinning bag, and it was not much effort. Note that the ends are different.  If I ever nee...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

DRS, fineness, and vibration

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Vibration in a DD system raises the effective DRS, making it more difficult to spin at the fineness expected from the calculated DRS. Surp...
Saturday, September 24, 2011

Plying from a center-pull cake

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With improvised cake holders, the singles twist.  Better is:
1 comment:
Thursday, September 22, 2011

Lambtown

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I will be at Lambtown in Dixon, Ca this year.  I will be helping around the Merdian Jacob booth. I am in the wood shop this week, so the T...
1 comment:
Wednesday, September 21, 2011

DRS Revisited

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I have been plying yarn for my Shetland gansey.  Some of the singles were spun last winter before I built the Hot Rod and some after.  Ru...
4 comments:
Thursday, September 15, 2011

The hot rod spinning wheel revisited

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In May, I wrote about how I had upgraded my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. Since then I have spun a lot of singles in the 5,600 to 9,0...
Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Carding and Spinning Oil

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I just posted that fleece needs to be clean before it can be processed.  That is true, it needs to be clean so that it drops all of the grit...
1 comment:

Spinning and knitting in the Grease

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One of the great romantic fables of spinning and knitting is that fisherman's sweaters spun and knit in the "grease" are warme...
2 comments:
Sunday, September 11, 2011

How it was done

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I look at  old knitting sheaths, and I ask, why did they do it like that? For example look at this photo of  various knitting sheaths ( ht...
Thursday, September 08, 2011

Re: anonymice

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Scientists ask questions, and then seek the answers.  Time and budget are always a constraint.  One cannot ask all possible questions, and o...
6 comments:
Saturday, September 03, 2011

Venting again

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The other thing that cannot be worked out from swatches is venting. The very tightly knit fabrics produce a garment that is very warm.  If...
3 comments:
Friday, September 02, 2011

The "anonymice" want to chew on the notebooks.

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None of this was about science.  It was about technology.  This is the kind of technical development that most companies do, and which they ...
5 comments:
Thursday, August 25, 2011

Is undyed wooI warmer than dyed wool?

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Short answer: Most of the time:  No. On a cloudy day in Ireland, the difference is detectable, with dyed being warmer.  Here in Califor...
7 comments:
Thursday, August 18, 2011

Knitting sheath with clew

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A very functional knitting sheath with a clew to hold the yarn. The wide hook of the clew was made to hold the big center pull cakes of ...
2 comments:

The Spinning News

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With my fixed DRS, I have to spin a little (couple hundred yards) and then wind off or my twist changes too much.  Thus, speed of winding of...
Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Warmer Yarn

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Last night I was in Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft store and a 100 gram skein of  Kashmira by Sensations jumped  in my basket.  Sensations is a hou...
4 comments:
Thursday, August 11, 2011

More on knitting for fishing

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I keep coming back to the question of when seamen and fishermen started wearing knit upper body garments. I open the topic of "Traditio...
4 comments:
Tuesday, August 02, 2011

A sailor knits

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Knitting while sailing on a wicked cold day on the Bay. Waves broke over the bow, and soaked my knitting bag. Everything got wet, and the st...
5 comments:
Saturday, July 30, 2011

The second generation of hand spun gansey yarn

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I have stopped hand spinning 5-ply gansey yarn. (Mostly !) These days, I spin 6-ply.  Construction is 3 x 2-ply. I like knitting yarns co...
4 comments:
Friday, July 22, 2011

The trail to 9,000 ypp

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Last year, I was making 5-ply gansey yarn from ~5,600 ypp singles. Why that odd number?  Going back to England in the 15th century, yarn ...
4 comments: