Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Posture while knitting - Or a Perch for knitting.

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Over the years, I have used several favorite knitting chairs. Each seemed to work best with a particular kind of knitting sheath. (Airli...
Saturday, July 18, 2020

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About 20 years ago, I started my exploration of how durable, weatherproof wool seaman’s garments could have been expeditiously produced p...
Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Learning advance knitting

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Carson Demers (https://www.ergoiknit.com/ ) and I met on the SF quay the other day and had a little master’s class on swaving. I gave him ...
1 comment:
Sunday, May 19, 2019

Knitting needles - revisited yet again

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I had not been doing much knitting, but looking around I saw that there were a number of WIP, some commercial yarn, and a good bit of hand ...
2 comments:
Monday, October 08, 2018

Spinzilla

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This last week, I spun about 25,000 yards of wool yarn, about half semi-worsted from flock run 56 count wool and half woolen from fine  Ram...
1 comment:
Saturday, September 15, 2018

Cotton Cards

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I like my drum carder - it is a Clemes and Clemes. I think hand cranked carders can be gentler on fine fibers than the motorized. However...
1 comment:
Saturday, September 08, 2018

Spinzilla

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All of this talk about fine spinning has put me in the mood to do some spinning. My wife is off to a school reunion, so I am off to Spinzil...

THREE

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All the wheel makers indicate the "ratio" of  their wheels in various configurations. However, because of drive belt slip, it is ...
1 comment:
Friday, September 07, 2018

TWO

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Alden made me 2 DD flyers - a #1 and a #0, his "Competition" flyer.  The #1 Flyer has a capacity  of about 3 ounces of yarn and t...

ONE

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I spin at a reasonable speed. I did not learn to spin until I was old, my eyes dim, and my fingers stiff. My advantages were curiosity and ...
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Thursday, September 06, 2018

How fast did professional hand spinners spin?

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 See http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-thread-of-hand-spun-wool-in-one-hour/ My normal single is 5,600 ypp  (...
Saturday, August 25, 2018

Vogue Knitting Live

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The Vogue Knitting Live San Francisco will be at the Hilton the long weekend of  September 21. On the September 21, 2018, I will be in the ...
1 comment:
Sunday, July 29, 2018

DRS Spinning wheels revisited

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Is it DRS?  Spin and maintain treadle pace, then draft faster.   If the wheel sucks all the yarn into the orifice faster than it can in...

Carbon Steel needles

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When I started all this, I was pleasantly surprised that my carbon steel (spring) steel needles did not rust nearly as much as I expected. ...
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 ...