Friday, October 28, 2011

Fifth grade physics

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Let us consider the world of Peter Teal - Hand Woolcombing and Spinning.  PT puts a lot of effort into combing, planking, and drawing off a ...
4 comments:
Thursday, October 27, 2011

Double Flier Spinning Wheels

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The Han Chinese  (2,000 years ago) had treadle powered, double spindle spinning wheels so that a cotton spinner could spin with both hands. ...
2 comments:
Monday, October 24, 2011

Handspun 10-ply Aran yarn

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It can be done. 10-ply,. 700 yards per pound. 16 wpi.    That right! If you take the singles that were hand spun worsted for weaving at ...
4 comments:
Thursday, October 20, 2011

Anything that can be done, can be done better

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The spindle with removable whorl got shown to a Portuguese historian. She will be starting extensive travels in the near future. We playe...
1 comment:
Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Sum of All

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It is possible to hand spin worsted yarn using a "long-draw" technique.  ( Not what you have been told before, now is it? ) It r...
3 comments:

Spindles and spindle whorls

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A while back, I thought about spindles.  I went around and played with a bunch of  them.  I went into the shop and made a few.  My conclusio...
2 comments:
Thursday, October 13, 2011

Distaff

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 I did not learn to use a distaff when spinning wool. Then, I read a post in the blog, A stitch in time, and she pointed out that all the ol...
3 comments:
Sunday, October 09, 2011

Spinning in Public

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I like the idea, but I cannot do it. When I spin in public, I slow down and my grist goes all over the place. At Lambtown, I spun for HOUR...
3 comments:
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: