Sunday, May 31, 2015

Lyme Disease

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If you think I am harsh on the conventional wisdom of spinners, wait until I get going on the American Medical community. Lyme Disease ha...
5 comments:
Saturday, May 23, 2015

Overconfidence effect

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see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect And http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/impossible-knowledge-are_b_7421574....
6 comments:

Rhine Gold

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When I was young, I loved Wagner, but was always unhappy that he mixed up German mythology. Looking at the recent PBS special on the a...
2 comments:

acrylic failure

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A sock knit from worsted weight acrylic yarn that is knit too tight to be useful. Knit from wool (which has more stretch), it would ...
Monday, May 18, 2015

Success and Failure

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The contemporaneous accounts of  fisherman's garments tend to describe them as "rough' or "coarse". Warm, durable, a...
4 comments:
Saturday, May 16, 2015

The screamers

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I said flat ended needles work, and work faster, and are easier to make. A bunch of folk screamed! Did any of them get out their kni...
3 comments:
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The truth

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The truth is that once I have posed a pix to show that I am spinning a particular weight, I do not need to prove it over and over by postin...
3 comments:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Clewless

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One thing that many of my critics miss about me is that I do keep going back and rethinking the obvious.  If I get it wrong the first time,...
Sunday, May 10, 2015

Back to needles with flat ends

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A few pairs of socks later, I have worked out how to do decreases with a (knitting sheath) and needles with flat ends. Flat ends are not ...
4 comments:
Saturday, May 09, 2015

Flat stitches

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A recent swatch: 5x2 strand cabled sport weight Note that half the stitch column forms a vertical line of bumps like rope, and the o...
4 comments:
Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Numbers 3

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See : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Century_Mag_-_The_spinner_-_Millet.png Note that there is no treadle, but th...
11 comments:

Numbers 2

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Twist defines the grist for a given feed of fiber. Add a little more fiber to the feed and the grist goes down a bit and the yarn is firm...
Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Numbers

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Once again, somebody complains about all the "unhelpful" numbers that I spew out.  I do admit that I like numbers. Actually, th...
Friday, May 01, 2015

The drop spindle as a baseline.

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By the early medieval period, it was common for spinsters (professional spinners) to rent spinning wheels.  Spinsters were paid by the leng...
7 comments:
Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The end of needles

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Why are knitting needles pointed?  Really, why? The taper to the point acts as a wedge forcing the legs of the stitch open.  And, for kni...
1 comment:
Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Myth and certainty

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I find that I must spin a few hundred yards of  fine thread to be certain that I am spinning that wool at at its spin count. A picture real...
2 comments:
Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Spinning at more than 210 wpi

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I recently mentioned that 56 count wool spun at its spin count is a bundle of 20 fibers. Such a bundle  is just over 125 microns in diamete...
Monday, April 13, 2015

The Best

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One of my sculpture professors was friends with a world class silversmith/artist. The silversmith would come up and visit several times a y...
Saturday, April 11, 2015

Pix

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There is a group that says,"If there is no picture, it did not happen!" They want me to take pictures of what I do, or they do ...
6 comments:
Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Household Economy

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I can spin 2,500 ypp woolen singles and make 2-ply sport weight yarn in 3 passes (each ply + plying) through the wheel, meaning that it tak...