Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Beginning to End

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Begin with the end in mind. Is a yarn that you might be able to cobble into "some textile" at some point in the future what you...
4 comments:
Tuesday, April 29, 2014

8 hours of spinning

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Yesterday, after lunch (1 pm ) sat down to spin, and at 9 pm, I had the above skein of 400 yards of 5-ply (~6 oz), sport weight yarn. The...
Monday, April 28, 2014

Ply Twist

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To make a long story short, the old Fisherman's Wool was rather tightly spun singles of fine wool, rather loosely plied. When knit, the...
Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Craft is Textiles

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So! the question is, "How good are the textiles that one can produce?" I look to history for clues as to what textiles can be p...
9 comments:
Saturday, April 26, 2014

More Plies

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I was sorting through swatches to take to CNCH, and the effect that gobsmacked me was how much more elastic yarns with many plies are. I ...
Monday, April 21, 2014

More Twist

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Twist is what holds wool fiber together as yarn.   Within limits, more twist results in a more durable yarn. Consider 10-ply Aran weight....
Saturday, April 19, 2014

Twist and Grist

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I have been accused of getting my twist numbers wrong. That is unlikely.  I may have made a typo here or there, but over all, I am the on...
Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The last descent

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Recently, one of my wife's college roommates gave me a big bump of Maine top.   It has  a spin count of around 55, and a nice luster. ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, April 08, 2014

The great disconnect

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The best weavers in history were the professional hand weavers. The best knitters in history were the professional knitters. The best spi...
Wednesday, April 02, 2014

iron spindles

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see ART OF WEAVING f BY HAND AND BY POWER, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF ITS RISE AND PROGRESS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. fOR THE USE O...
13 comments:

Experience

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I worked for various Bechtel companies.  Our stock in trade was doing things that had never been done before.  We would build things bigger...
3 comments:
Tuesday, April 01, 2014

The Accelerator Revisited

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It has been weeks since I made another version of the accelerator. With this version I have spun, plied, and cabled miles and miles of yarn...
Monday, March 24, 2014

Experts

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I was told by "experts" that kitting sheaths are not useful. I was told by "experts" that weatherproof  fabric could n...
5 comments:
Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Crux of Sectional beams

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The essence of a "sectional beam" is not the mechanical structure on the loom, but how the weaver uses it. Any warp beam that r...
1 comment:
Friday, March 21, 2014

Fine wool fabric from warp weighted looms

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Those old timers made nice fabrics.  We see small samples of fabric where the were protected from decay by to toxic effects of metal butto...
9 comments:
Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Noble Art of Rolags

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Your birch dowel has a grain. Find the end that the rolag slides off easily.  Mark it.  Then slice the dowel in half, lengthwise to produce...
3 comments:
Friday, March 14, 2014

Fiber prep for high speed woolen

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Good spinning requires good fiber preparation.  Spinning very fine and very fast requires near perfect fiber preparation. My first fines ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Fast Woolen Yarn

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Once again, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Woolen can be spun very fast, it just takes a different fiber prep. The result is a nice hollow ...
Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The Accelerator

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Yarns "made up" in the process of tuning the accelerator. From top to bottom, 6-strand cabled fingering weight from 2-ply comme...
2 comments:
Monday, March 10, 2014

"Made up"

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The fact that folks missed the accelerators in Alden Amos (and other sources)  is a good clue into how familiar they are with the literatur...
15 comments: