About me, the 43rd edition ...

By Amelia © November 26, 2009

I was recently asked to describe a little about my skills and background, as a volunteer reviewer for WeaveZine (haven't seen it? go check it out -- it's the "Knitty" for weavers, and then some, with articles, reviews, blog posts, forums, and podcasts!)

And, this is my birth month. So, time to describe the me-now. Stay tuned, I'm a work in progress!

Where to start?

I teach spinning, spindles and wheels, beginner to advanced; fiber prep of all sorts (carding, combing, flicking, drum carding); and dyeing (fiber or yarn). I will actually teach pretty much anything people want to learn. If I don't know it yet (which is rare, in my field), I'll figure it out and figure out how to teach it -- which usually means my children get to learn it from me.

I've studied a wide variety of spinning types -- from perfectionist 2-plies to crazy wild art yarns; and spindles, from Navajo to Akha as well as the more conventional top and bottom whorls. I love it all!

My wheels and spindles: I have a large variety of both. I have had a great wheel, and a traditional Saxony wheel, but right now all my wheels are pretty much castle style due to space. I'm lucky that spindles don't take up much room, though I do try to keep my collection in check, under the century mark. I don't count the teaching supplies -- who, after all, needs 8 pairs of hand cards? A fiber-loving octopus, maybe ...

I recently self-published Productive Spindling (and got it on Amazon! that felt like a major accomplishment!). There are more books in my future -- I did say I was a work in progress -- right now I'm working on a non-fiber writing project, but after this, I will return to a fiber topic.

I'd call myself a beginner-intermediate weaver with the focus to do seemingly complex projects. My first weaving was a four harness undulating twill, for example. We have a local study group here, so I've dived into complex topics: laces, twills, and sewing with handwovens. My favorite structure to weave is twills; my favorite items to weave are tea towels and scarves.

My looms: 3 rigid heddle (Beka, Emilia, and Cricket), usually with multiple heddles though I play with color & weave in plain weave; 8 harness Baby Wolf; two 4 harness table looms; and an AVL 24" 24 harness compudobby that I'm still setting up (yeah, it's a little intimidating). My favorite shuttles are my end-feed shuttles, so far no one maker stands out for me, I have "one of each" syndrome there; though I also love my Bosworth boat shuttles -- sold all the rest, they are a clear favorite. My preferred warping method: back to front, by far. And I'm a big fan of direct warping on my RH looms.

The craziest part of my fiber arts is likely my circular sock machine; but it's also led me to explore color, dyeing sock yarns to get patterns and designs on socks. I enjoy searching for the perfect sock recipe, and also creating non-socks.

The fiber art I've done the longest is likely knitting, closely followed by crochet; actually, I'm not sure which I learned first, at my mother's knee.

I also search out rarer arts such as nalbinding. I've dabbled in felting, needle and wet, but tend to use those as "pick-up" skills on other projects, rather than as an end in themselves.

I operated a boutique fiber processing mill for a few years -- that was exciting! It taught me a great deal about sheep breeds, the rich varieties out there, and how each has their own characteristics for scouring, processing, and spinning.

What does the future hold?  More teaching and writing about spinning and fiber processing, definitely. Hopefully more experimentation with color in dyeing. Exploring more weaving, and progress on some larger knitting projects. And definitely a few more pairs of socks and fingerless gloves on the sock machine!

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© 26 November 2009 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/

What are lap spindles?

By Amelia © November 22, 2009

There have been several mentions on spindlitis lately of a particular variety of spindle -- a supported spindle that's supported by continuous twisting in the hand. They sound similar to me to what I've read about lap spindles in A Handspindle Treasury which are described there for spinning Icelandic yarn.

But these references are coming up about French spindles (I'm told that quenouille is actually French for distaff ... "spindle" in French is usually fuseau, on blogs I've looked at like this one), Portuguese, and traditional Serbian spindles, with accompanying YouTube videos, and they involve twirling the spindle continuously in the hand, rather than on the leg.

First, the French spindle, demonstrated by sergeantMajorette, who spins on a wide variety of support spindles and happily shares her knowledge and experience with those who ask:


I've seen this type of spindle offered on Etsy (and have one), antiques rather than new manufacture. So I wonder if they are still actively in use there. However, there's a modern Portuguese lady in this video spinning on one, with an assortment on the stool next to her:

Now, hers all look like they may be historical as well, very simple hand-carved spindles, not the polished turned woodwork that is common in modern American-made and Canadian-made spindles.

And finally, showing the global nature of spinning, a group of Serbian spinners re-enact traditional spinning (the spindle spinning starts at 2:40):


Though the traditional Icelandic lap spindles are described as being rolled on the leg, I can't help but wonder how similar in speed, and perhaps style, they might be to these support spindles. Both are uniquely different from the other sorts of support spindles, perhaps most closely similar to the Akha, which is also supported with the body rather than a dish like the Navajo, Takli, Russian, or Tibetan spindles.

I'd welcome any insights readers have on these spindles, as when there is a support spindling follow-on to Productive Spindling, I'd like to include information on these as well. I see some fun spinning explorations of these new-to-me support spindles in my future.

I have in the past pointed people to Connie Delaney's Spindle Spinning: From Novice to Expert as a good discussion of support spindles, covering Navajo spindles and Taklis as well as top and bottom whorl spindles. I'm happy to now also be able to point people to Abby Franquemont's newly released Respect the Spindle, which overviews not only those support spindles, but also Akha and Russian spindles, with wonderful photographs accompanying the overviews.

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For an A-to-Z glossary of spindle spinning terms, see the ispindle glossary. ispindle is a great online resource with many helpful tutorials available.
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© 22 November 2009 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/

When do you set the twist?

By Amelia © November 6, 2009

"When do you set the twist?" comes up in almost every conversation I have with a new spinner. They're curious to know if they need to set the twist in the singles before plying, how to finish their skein once it's plied, or they want their skein of singles to relax and stop being so curly and twisty.

First, let me jump in with: you don't need to set the twist in your singles, or skein them up and wash them before plying. Just take them as they are, and ply them.

What we do as spinners, is not set the twist so much as either strive for balanced twist so the skein won't be curly and twist -- only possible with plied yarns -- or make the twist go dormant, so an over-plied or under-plied skein, or a skein of singles, seems relaxed and calm. (Secretly, however, it's not -- the twist is sleeping, waiting for a tap on the shoulder to wake it up.)

In fact, the moment you start winding yarn onto your spindle or wheel, you are stretching it out taut as you wind it on (right? right!). Winding the yarn under pressure like that will help the twist go dormant. Even after five minutes, the twist has started to get sleepy. After a weekend, it's snoozing; after a month, a moderate twist single is fairly comatose.

So, when you ply those dozy singles, you need a "live" sample to compare to, if your goal is balanced twist. Balanced twist is cool -- like an arch, the twist in the singles leans against the twist in the ply, each balancing the other out so your yarn appears calm and relaxed, behaves calm and relax, despite having all that twist stored in it. That is what makes yarn stronger than fiber -- the twist, holding the strands together, making the whole appear stronger than the sum of its parts (because we discount the 'invisible' force of the twist).

I usually ply a short length as I am first spinning my singles and save that sample to compare to when I ply. If I've forgotten, then I'll break off a length of singles, say 8", fold it in half, knot the ends together, and put it in a sink of warm water. It will writhe and twist on itself (very cool to see!). Once it's done with its water dance, I take it out, run my fingers along it so the twist is evenly distributed, and dry it in a towel. That sample shows how the singles can balance each other in the ply. If I match that when I'm plying, then I will have a balanced yarn.

Another way to test for balance, while plying, is to look at the fibers in the yarn. A balanced yarn has the fibers aligned along the length of the yarn. It takes strong eyes and good light -- and the right fibers -- to see the individual strands in the yarn.

Once you have plied your yarn, putting the skein in a warm bath will wake up any dormant twist and let you see if the skein is balanced or not. If the skein twists on itself more than 2 complete rotations, then it's underplied if it's twisting in the ply direction; or it's overplied, if it's twisting in the direction the singles were spun. If the skein is overplied or underplied, you can alter the amount of twist with another trip through on your spindle or wheel, adding whichever type of twist it needs (more ply twist or less ply twist).

All this warm bath is doing is waking up dormant twist. If you want to permanently alter the characteristics of your yarn, you have to look at methods that change it in irreversible, or hard to reverse, ways.

The primary method available to the handspinner is fulling -- have a sink of hot water and a sink of cold water, and a skein with plenty of figure eight ties on it. Agitate the skein in the hot sink for a few minutes; squeeze it out. Agitate the skein in the cold sink for a few minutes; squeeze it out. Keep going between sinks a few times -- you may see or feel the skein shrinking down as you do this. You are actually felting the yarn. Be careful, because extremely feltable fibers could become a yarn donut rather than a fulled skein -- test for strand separatability as you do this. You'll want to reskein the skein when you are done, carefully tugging apart any strands that have adhered (lightly, I hope!) to their neighbors.

Oh, and -- fulling only works with feltable fibers; superwash wool and cotton won't full, or not much anyway. I have managed to somewhat full superwash skeins such as the one at the top of the page -- an overplied sock yarn (socks below show no bias) Some wools are more feltable than others, as well. So if you plan to do this, try to felt some of the unspun fiber before committing yourself to the full project.

A milder fulling is to take your freshly washed (not agitated) skein, wrap it in a towel, and whack it really hard on a countertop or other hard surface. Do this a few times from both ends of the skein. This shocks the surface fibers and makes them grab onto the strands more. It helps develop a halo in fibers that do that -- yak, angora, mohair, for example.

Now, I won't do either of these more "shocking" things -- fulling or whacking -- until I've verified that my skein is either balanced, or has the amount of twist I want. I do overply my yarn on purpose -- it's a great way to add durability to sock yarns -- and then full the yarn so that it will knit into a straight fabric. I will shock my singles to get them to quiet down just a touch.

I typically only dry my skeins with weights if I intend to weave with them. That is because I need them to be inelastic to behave well as warp on my loom. But, I don't want to lose their elasticity with a permanent change -- the fabric, once removed from the loom, will be fulled, and in the process the yarn will wake up and regain its elasticity (which is then transformed in the fulling process).

If you wet-block a skein -- dry it with weights or while stretched out -- any active twist in the skein is still in it, dormant, similar to the old singles or yarn still on a spindle or bobbin. If you knit with the wet-blocked yarn and then wash the knit fabric, any twist dormant in the yarn will wake up and can cause the fabric or stitches to bias.

How can you know if your fabric will bias? My usual test is to hold up my just-washed-and-squeezed-out skein. If the skein twists on itself more than two complete rotations, then the fabric is likely to bias. If it's less than two full rotations, I might see some biasing in the stitches -- one leg upright, the other at an angle, on the knit-face of the fabric -- but I won't see any in the fabric. There are knitting methods you can use to overcome bias, as well -- garter stitch and seed stitch are less likely to bias. My crochet friend tells me she doesn't see any biasing in her crocheted fabric, often made with her own handspun, moderately high twist singles.

Other finishing techniques include steaming a stretched-out skein, simmering a skein (often done with cotton), and, I suppose, ironing a skein -- though I haven't tried that one. Commercial mills have much higher temperatures and more specialized equipment than the home spinner, I am curious to know how they create the calm singles that are Malabrigo laceweight, for example -- if you try a warm-water folded-back length of that yarn, it barely twists on itself at all. But the fibers are not aligned. I've tried fulling, and kettle steaming, but so far have not managed to produce a similar skein of yarn despite copying fiber and twist amount. The trick is in the finishing -- so there's yet another way to finish a yarn that I have not yet uncovered.

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The Bellwether is having holiday sale -- 15% off select items through the end of 2009. Shop early for the best selection, and thanks! for supporting Ask The Bellwether!

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Related posts on finishing yarn:
How do you set the twist in handspun cotton?
What makes my handspun yarn bloom?
How do you steam block handspun yarn?
What do I do with my very first full spindle?
Do you set the twist in handspun singles before you ply?
How do I ply set singles?
Is my yarn's twist set when I ply it?
Why do you wash the finished skein in warm or hot water?
How do you set the twist in singles yarn?

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© 6 November 2009 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/