Saturday, November 30, 2013

The loom web

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Freed from the tyranny of bobbins and prins, the woolen weft soars past the 2 kilo mark     Then, there is a kilo++ of worsted warp at abou...
Friday, November 29, 2013

Plying steam stabilized singles

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I like working with steam stabilized singles.  I made a lot of them by passing singles through a steam chamber as I wound off the spinning ...

Pig tails to skeins

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I have bins full of skeins that never got properly blocked for one reason or another.  I call them, "My little shits." Now, the...
Wednesday, November 27, 2013

A better edge

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A good number of spinners turn their own wooden spindles with wood turning tools.  And in wood turning, very sharp tools are essential. A...
10 comments:
Sunday, November 24, 2013

The return of niddy-noddy

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Look at the traditional and old designs for niddy-noddys.  They are STRONG, heavy, and clunky. Why? Modern designs of light weight PVC ...
2 comments:

Finishing Yarn

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Many modern spinning "teachers" say that yarn can be finished by winding a skein, wetting it,  and letting the skein dry under va...
8 comments:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Center pull balls

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I love center pull balls. One of my favorite knitting yarns comes in skeins, so I bought a jumbo cake winder. I love it for knitting yarn, ...
4 comments:
Saturday, November 16, 2013

Stone Whorls

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My sister is a world class goldsmith.  Since he retired in 1980, my father has been doing lapidary work for my sister.  He does fine, one o...
2 comments:
Friday, November 15, 2013

More on Twisty Sticks

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A twisty stick is a piece of wire 8-12" long with a hook at one end.  The Scandinavians make, big, tapered, wooden ones, but I am inte...
6 comments:
Wednesday, November 13, 2013

2 Rules of Thumb

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1.) One can expect a talented, careful production worker to make a serious mistake at least once in every million operations.  Thsi me...
11 comments:
Monday, November 11, 2013

Clean Wool

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Good spinning requires clean wool. This is notice that I change my story, whenever, I find a better way. I am back to something like what...
Sunday, November 10, 2013

The little python

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Alden's #1 flier opens its jaws and swallows rolags, batts,  and then full bins of Rambouillet.  It is like a great snake unhinging its...
Sunday, November 03, 2013

Strategies for low grist woolens

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In the past, I spun low grist woolens only in sample quantities to demonstrate that I could do it. Now, I find myself spinning pounds of su...
Friday, November 01, 2013

Am I OK?

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The short answer is, "No!"  The longer answer is that nobody is Ok! Last spring, I made the SSA Master Death List.  Easy enou...
6 comments:

Halloween

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The tool of choice for spinning the weft is the AA#1 fast flier with the big bobbin Alden supplied and the 1.05 DRS flier whorl that I made...
1 comment:
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...