Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Sharpening HSS

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I have been turning thread bobbins from solid blocks of maple and oak. Often the shavings are like long (hundreds of feet) strips of paper....
Tuesday, May 08, 2018

Bobbins and singles

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I spin a lot of singles. Some get plied, some get woven, but I am moving to storing singles on bobbins.   I understand the advantages of st...
Friday, May 04, 2018

Position with blunt needles

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With pointy needles, one can slightly change position as one knits to reduce stress on particular muscles. With blunt needles, the positi...
Monday, April 30, 2018

lace yarn

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With all the news about Russia these days I got to thinking again about Orenburg Lace. Prices seem to be way down, which tells me things a...
1 comment:
Sunday, April 29, 2018

Knitting is hard work, use good yarn to make the product worthwhile

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Somebody said “Shetland wool”, and the first thing I thought of was jumper yarn as in: ( https://www.thewoollythistle.com/collections/2-p...
Saturday, April 21, 2018

Gansey Needles Revisited

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I went to 18”, pointy gansey needles because that was the conventional wisdom on what was used to   knit fine ganseys, and I wanted very ...
Thursday, April 19, 2018

Swaving

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Swaving was the last knitting technique that I learned. One way or another, knitting is a process of using levers to move loops o...
3 comments:
Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Introduction to gansey needles.

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I had heard that for real gansey knitting one needed real gansey needles.   (Pointy steel needles 18” long.) I made myself gansey needle...
1 comment:

Summary of knitting sheath technique as I understand it today

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 Time to upgrade socks The right socks for the coming storm. Blunt 9" US1 needles using commercial worsted weight yarn. ...
1 comment:
Friday, June 30, 2017

Reasonable productivity of hand spinners.

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Spinning for knitting, I spun "firm" yarns.  Mostly, I spun 5,600 ypp worsted, at a rate of ~ 560 yards per hour.  Allowing just ...
3 comments:

the Old Dye

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3,000-year-old textiles are earliest evidence of chemical dyeing in the Levant Discovery provides insight into society and copper produc...
Friday, March 17, 2017

Worsted vs woolen

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"They" say that a difference between woolen and worsted, is that worsted is finished when it is spun,  while woolen requires addi...
3 comments:
Monday, February 06, 2017

Deconstructing commercial multi-ply yarn into singles

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Alden shows how do do this with spinning wheel, yarn reel, and custom tools. It can also be done with a spinning wheel, raddle (or tensio...
Thursday, December 22, 2016

Jersey, the center of the world

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Some of you have thought and likely still think that I was/am  "possessed" by the idea of  Jersey and Guernsey being the home of ...
Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Intentional Baker-

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My grandfather was a diversified farmer with a thousand acres of wheat. All summer long, he had a large farm crew, and he made sure they we...
Saturday, October 15, 2016

Sleying the big one

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I had been looking for hooks for threading finer reeds and heddles.  I was not happy with the tools in the shops, and did not seen anythi...
Thursday, October 13, 2016

Spinzilla

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I spun a few thousand yards of lace weight warp, some worsted, and more woolen. Every blinking bobbin that will fit on my bobbin rack is fu...
Saturday, October 08, 2016

Some are a little deaf in their greek ears.

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Hear is a an aid to Translating the greek; Google  "classic greek sculpture discovery", select images, and study them until y...
2 comments:
Thursday, October 06, 2016

95%

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See  http://www.aidan-campbell.co.uk/PDFs/Authentic%20or%20just%20Accurate.pdf
Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Fiber from the mill

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Some experimentation tells me that much of my objections to fiber prepared in commercial mills is substantially caused by the use tension...