Friday, February 27, 2015

Fine Woolen

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I have spun more than 10,000 yards of  fine woolen singles in the last few months.  Most of it was spun by drum carding Rambouillet into ~4...
Thursday, February 26, 2015

The Care and Feeding of Carders

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Henry and Roy Clemes came by the guild last night to talk about fiber preparation. Sure I say that better spinning is the best competitiv...
Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Cakes and Twist

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Some folks on the Internet are saying that "center pull' cakes of yarn should be unwound from the outside (with the cake rotating)...
2 comments:
Tuesday, February 17, 2015

The Need

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I have not been honest. A major reason reason for pushing the  bounds of hand textile production technology was to provide a "Plan B...
1 comment:

More on knitting tight to avoid shrinking

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I am well aware of the differences in felting character between different breeds. The style of the yarn also makes a difference, how the ya...
1 comment:

Old School Super WasH

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This is a list of my current rules of thumb on washing various knit fabrics Softly, lofty yarns, (not spun from super wash) with few pl...
Saturday, February 14, 2015

Into the Deep End -- Once More

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Growing up, one of the stories in the house was of my father's Icelandic  roommate at watchmaking school who supported himself by knitt...
12 comments:
Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Ultimate Rant

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This was triggered by a fellow that teaches statistics, and yet he recently denied the reality of  AGW. One knows, respectable people ...
4 comments:

Biochar

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see http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/10/3621142/national-academy-rejects-geoengineering/ The reports are available for purchase o...
Tuesday, February 10, 2015

I seem to have fooled myself

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Last fall I started a series of boot socks as we were out and about. The yarn is a wool, 3x2 mill spun cable at 840 ypp.  I fell into the h...
Monday, February 09, 2015

Back to the beginning

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Why??  We were traveling in Nova Scotia, and my wife bought me a nice, hand knit fisherman's sweater.  I wore it fishing in California,...
2 comments:
Monday, February 02, 2015

The Drug

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Not just any drug, but "The Drug"!  Fossil fuels are like a performance enhancing drug that we all know is very effective.  ...
2 comments:
Thursday, January 29, 2015

Other paths to warmer fabric

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Fair Isle is a warmer fabric. If we look to this clip from 1932, (http://ssa.nls.uk/film/1129,  IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING  ) we see the wo...
8 comments:
Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Juno

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Nor-Easter Juno has reminded New England that as global warming warms the bottom of the atmosphere, it also cools the top of the atmosphere...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Make it work, then make it pretty

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"Make it work, then make it pretty", is always how I work. When something works, I get excited, and I take pix. Then improving ...
10 comments:
Monday, January 26, 2015

Warmth, again and again

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If you want real warmth in clothing, it needs to block air flow like a fine bed sheet. With knit wool that means lots of twist in the yar...
1 comment:

Power 2

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When I started spinning, one teacher loved drop spindles that would spin for a long time.  My first drop spindles were designed in this sch...
4 comments:
Sunday, January 25, 2015

Power

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Somebody said they wanted a wheel that was fast and easy to treadle. However, on a high ratio wheel that will insert twist at thousands o...
4 comments:
Saturday, January 24, 2015

Spinning Demo

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I will be at  Carson Demers presentation on Wed night.  see  http://treadles2threads.blogspot.com/. I will have new gear for the show and...
3 comments:
Friday, January 23, 2015

RPM update

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The new geometry is faster, and it took me months to learn to use it.  Net drive ratio is on the order of just over 58. so with my normal t...
7 comments: