This, my dear readers, is eighthundredandseventy metres of Coburg Fuchsschaf two-ply:


weighing in at 1630 grams. It is a honking big chunk of yarn, and it will travel off now to be woven into a fabric of the kind once used for packing up stuff.

Yay.

There are days, sometimes, when things are just... not as usual. Today turned out to be one of them, partly due to my parents stopping by, and me trying to cram the usual amount of work into the day despite having coffee and a chat with them. The severe lateness of this blog post is thus due to my routine being thrown off plus the computer doing some shenanigans in the late afternoon, when I actually fired it up and would have had the chance to see, on my virtual to-do list, that blogging has not happened yet.

But, on the plus side, I did manage to get things done. So... the spinning of the next batch of yarn is finished, and I'm sitting on a heap (a true heap!) of really thick two-ply yarns. Tomorrow will see the yarn sent off after taking a few photos of the skeins, and the yarn, for documentation purposes.

Because, you see... I recently found out that there can be a quite remarkable difference between how yarn looks in the skein and how it looks in the fabric. Which is... interesting. In the Firefly oh-god-oh-god-interesting way, kind of:
Well... it looks like I will have to take care not to add too much twist (I cannot believe I'm really writing this), or the cloth will not look as it's supposed to look. I'm also developing a few more thoughts and hypotheses about twist angle and its reliability, all of which are interesting but not helpful at the moment - though they should be good, juicy stuff to talk about at NESAT in May...

Really, really full. As in "no more yarn shall wind onto it" full:


And it took a fraction of the time to fill a bobbin with the thicker yarn (of course). Soon I'll find out how many metres of yarn we are looking at here - and then I will have a rough estimate of how much more of that rope I need to spin for the fabric sample!

Happy New Year to all of you - may it bring joy and wonderful adventures and many successful, happy projects!

I'm back home from a wonderful time off. There was time spent with family, and time spent with friends; there was roast goose and cookies and cake, gingerbread and chocolate; coffee and tea were consumed in no little quantity, and we had walks in the snow and the now-traditional mousse au chocolat to toast the new year at midnight on the 31st.

Now it's back to work - the usual gazillion of emails to sort out, and of course the spinning. The first batch of yarns for the first piece of fabric was done just before the holidays, and now I will spin up about 2 km of really thick yarn from Coburg Fox wool for the reproduction of a packaging fabric.

The workplace is already all set up, and I've started off:


The thread for this fabric is a two-ply (it is one of the quite rare medieval fabrics where plied yarn was used for weaving), and it's about 3-5 mm thick - so I'm spinning singles that feel really, really chunky to me. This is quite a challenge, as I'm very used to spinning fine and very fine yarns, but not yarns this size (or, as I usually call them, ropes).

Because the thread is so thick, I have mounted an "aim for this"-sample card on the left side of the spinner. On the plus side for spinning bulky yarns: Checking the twist angle does not require a magnifying glass for this thread. Also, the spool fills up much, much faster with this kind of yarn!

You've seen enough pictures of bobbins now - time to see more spinning pictures, but with actual spinning in them:

[caption id="attachment_2827" align="alignnone" width="451"] Spinning happily along - now working on the weft thread for one of the fabrics.


It is coming along nicely, the spinning work. Not every day is like every other one, but today felt like a really good one - which is nice, as I want to have a good batch done and ready to go into the post by the end of this week.

[caption id="attachment_2824" align="alignnone" width="640"] Drafting from the Romney top. You can see the difference between the fluffed-up loosened (pre-drafted) fibres beneath my hands and the original top hanging down beside my leg.


There is, of course, also the periodical checking of thread thickness and spinning angle:

[caption id="attachment_2826" align="alignnone" width="640"] First the thickness... which should be around 0.5 mm for this one...


[caption id="attachment_2825" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...and then the angle with help of my thread counter.


For today, though, I'm done spinning. More thread will be made tomorrow!

Production spinning - as in making lots and lots of yarn, as consistently as possible, for a specific project - is a nice thing, but it's also a time-consuming task. So before you dive into a spinning project for a handwoven cloth or a hand-knitted sweater (and I'm not talking about a bulky baby sweater here), it is well worth investing some time and effort to make sure that you are not going to sink with your project half-way. So here are some things about production spinning that I find helpful - and maybe you will, too.

1. Have a solid idea of what you want.
   In case where you are spinning for a fabric reproduction, that is rather easy as it is predetermined by the original. When you are spinning for something else, though, you are free to decide what you want - lots of twist, and thus a resilient and hard yarn? or rather a softer yarn that might not be as durable? Single or plied? Thick or thin? You might want to do a few test runs to find out if the thing you are spinning really suits the thing you want to make with it later - you don't want to invest many, many spinning hours to sit on a lot of handspun that you can't use afterwards.
2. Get or make yourself a reference thingie.
   Once you have figured out what you want, make sure you'll be able to spin exactly that kind of yarn. Yes, that sounds like a Thank You Captain Obvious, but chances are that you might drift away from the yarn you make at the start. Changes in fitness level, concentration level, the amount of attention you pay, how tense and excited you are at the start versus a bit in - all these can affect the yarn you are spinning. Danger of drifting off what you planned is higher if the yarn you are aiming for is further away from your "mindless spinning standard yarn" - so you will want something to compare your current spinning to, allowing you to recalibrate in case of drifting. This something can be a spinning angle and thickness card like the one I use, or a sample piece of your test yarn stuck onto a card. Whatever you use, it should allow you to compare both the thickness and the amount of twist of your current yarn with your goal yarn. Use it periodically, for instance when you need to stop spinning anyway because you need to have a sip of tea, or change the hook on the spinning wheel flyer. Making these checks a habit will not lose you a lot of time, but might just save you a bad disappointment later.
3. Be consistent.
   Hand-spun yarns will always have irregularities; it's in the nature of the thing and cannot be avoided. Sometimes they are caused by the fibres, sometimes by a bit of inattention of the spinner, or a snag by the tool. They just do happen.
   However, you can try keeping them down as much as possible by having as much consistency as possible. Set up your workplace the same way, have the same good suitable lighting, the same position or seat, prep your fibre the same way - it will all help.
4. Prepare your fibre.
   Speaking of fibre prep, this is helpful even if you are working with industrially prepared fibre (just like I do for those projects, usually). Your batt or top will have sat for a while before you take it into your hands for spinning, and it might be compressed; if it was dyed after combing or carding, it will definitely be slightly felty. Even if you don't see any compression, though, it is a good idea to loosen up the fibres by pre-drafting them.
   For the pre-drafting, take the top or the strip of batt, grab the end and gently pull on the fibres until they start to move apart. Change your grip to the place where they moved, and repeat the procedure, working your way along your top or batt. This loosens up the compressed fibres and makes your drafting for spinning much smoother and easier.
   For better consistency, I use a diz for that (though I am generous and call everything with a hole that I use for drafting a diz). The diz also clearly indicates when I am nearing the end of the pre-drafted part of my top (I don't tear off pieces if I can avoid it) and have to pre-draft some more.
5. Watch yourself, and take breaks as necessary.
   This ties in with the drifting bit - spinning, especially if it is not your can-do-it-in-my-sleep yarn, takes concentration. After a while, this will result in less consistent drafting, more variation, slower speed or something else, or a combination of whatever you are prone to do when your attention gets worse. So keep an eye on your spinning efficiency, and take a break, or stop for the day when the symptoms get bad enough. (You get to decide yourself when that is. If you don't care about a bit more variation in the yarn and have to get it finished soon, you will obviously have a different break-off point than somebody trying to go for the perfect yarn and having lots of time to do that.)
6. Calculate for enough time.
   Speaking of breaks, and stops - make sure you have calculated for enough time for your spinning project. Spinning is not a fast thing, and you might not be able to spend several hours per day on it either, depending on the project, your other work or obligations, and your level of practice.
   Also - when calculating approximate work time needed, don't forget that you also have to get the yarn off the bobbins and set the twist. Skeining off a few hundred or even a few thousand metres of yarn is not done in split seconds!
7. Get (and make!) enough material.
   That should be obvious, but it is worth mentioning it - when you are buying your material, make sure you get enough. Especially if you are doing high-twist yarns, they will have more weight at the same thickness than low-twist, fluffy yarns... and running out of material just before the end is not only awkward, but also annoying.
   Speaking of which - when spinning specific amounts, go a little over as well to make sure you have a bit of spare in case there are more breaks that need to be fixed, or something else goes wrong. Yes, theoretically you could just spin up more when it is needed, but in practice... that is also really annoying. And if you are like me, you will want to be finished with that step at some point!

This, my dear readers, is the current status of the spinning spree:


Well, actually, that is not true. That was the status before I spent a good hour and a half getting the yarn onto the skeiner and setting the twist. This is the actual current status of the spinning spree:


2260 metres of yarn, about 0.5 mm in diameter, with a twist angle of about 45°. That is approximately two thirds of what I need of this yarn.

Tomorrow, I'll take it off and see how much it weighs - and then it will sit and wait for its companions. One more skein (though smaller than this one) for the first warp to be done, and then the same in the other direction... and that will do for the first (and largest) batch of spinning.

Whee.