Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Princess is dead! Long live the Princess!

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In the 4,000 years prior to 1750, there was global trade in hand-spun, hand-woven textiles.  The textiles were mostly made from fibers such...
15 comments:
Monday, October 14, 2013

The best fleece for a gansey.

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I see a gansey as the right sweater for the job. What is the job? Where is the job?  When is the job? If the job is really cold, then y...
3 comments:
Sunday, October 13, 2013

DRS Revisited

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Differential Rotation Speed (DRS) is a way of setting up a double drive spinning wheel.  I first came across it Alden Amos, Big Book of Han...
Saturday, October 12, 2013

VM

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When sheep do what sheep do, they get Vegetable Matter in their wool.  It is a fact of life. If you see commercial wool fiber in the f...
4 comments:
Friday, October 04, 2013

Sizing warp

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When weaving fine cloth, the warp is subject to a fair amount of abrasion.  With fine wools, the abraded fiber can cause jamming and breaka...
Saturday, September 28, 2013

Long Draw

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Long draw with driven spindles was one of the enabling technologies that made wool cloth less expensive, increased warmth for the masses, a...
Friday, September 27, 2013

Horses for Courses

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Last night, our guild hosted a "free" come one, come all class on spinning cotton, taught by Stephenie Gaustad. There was a huge ...
Friday, September 20, 2013

Irish Tension

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When I started spinning, I started with an Ashford Traddy because I knew it would be easy to work on and adapt. As I got to be a better s...
1 comment:
Friday, August 30, 2013

Eastern Cross Stitch on hand held needles

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The other day, I said that ECS could not be knit with handheld needles.  I can hear the tittering anonomouse saying, he is crazy," I c...
Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Metal spindles

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We are very much a product of our culture and the expectations programmed into us by that culture. We recognized neolithic spindle whorls...
5 comments:
Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Inventory of knitting methods

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Most modern knitters would say that one's method or style of knitting is purely a matter of personal preference.  I add that a knitter...
1 comment:

Experts

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Feynman said that he did not trust the experts and always did the calculations himself.  That works for me. Traditional experts learn mor...
Sunday, August 25, 2013

Socks

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Good socks allow one to walk farther, faster, and to be less foot sore afterward. For an army, this means that the army with the better s...
Saturday, August 17, 2013

Weatherproof

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I claim to knit "weatherproof" garments.  If you claim to knit as tight as I do, your fabrics should do anything that my knitting...
8 comments:
Friday, August 16, 2013

More on Eastern Cross Stitch (Coptic Socks)

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There are at least 2 ways to rapidly and effectively produce ECS. Use of short DPN with a long knitting sheath has already been mentioned....
3 comments:
Thursday, August 15, 2013

Jersey

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I long ago decided that Jersey and Guernsey (in the old days) had both produced fine, dense fabrics suitable for garments worn by sailors ...
3 comments:

Eastern cross stitch

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I am coming to like ECS. Some years ago, I tested samples and decided it was inherently too porous to make a good fabric for fishing and sa...
Friday, August 02, 2013

Judging textile objects.

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The best textile judge that I know always asks, 'What is the PURPOSE of this object?"  The purpose of an object may be to display...
6 comments: