A while ago, I wrote a teaser post about a plying technique that I wanted to write about - and then I almost forgot I promised you a follow-up post.

While most of the ladies on medieval images have a long distaff that clearly holds fibres, like this:

Psalter of Fecamp. Ca. 1180. From Petzold, Andreas. Romanische Kunst, art in context. Köln: Dumont, 1995, p. 97.

and some fewer ones have a short distaff that also clearly holds fibres, like this:

Detail from Giotto: Annunciation to St. Anna. Scrovegni-Chapel, Padua. 1300-1320. From Flores d'Arcais, Francesca. Giotto. New York: Abbeville, 1995, p. 150.

something about this picture has always sort of tickled the back of my brain.

Young woman, Pseudo-Apuleius, 13th century. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vind. 93. From Kotzur, Hans-Jürgen. Hildegard von Bingen 1098-1179. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1998, p. 336.

It's not the usual what she's holding; it's clearly a shorter distaff than usual, and the form of the stuff on the distaff is very clearly defined, very spindle-shaped and not fibery-looking at all.

Let's jump to another topic: the problem of plying. I don't know how well you manage to spin the same amount of length on two spindles or spools - I don't manage so very well; there's always some of the yarn left on one side when the other side has already run out. There's a theoretically very easy way to avoid this, though: To fold the yarn spun in half (from one single spindle, spool, or cop) and ply it with itself. When there isn't a foulup, you end up with a neat two-ply with no singles left.

There are different instructions on the 'Net on how to ply from a center-pull ball, and there's also the Andean Plying Bracelet which both are means to achieve the desired end-result: a skein of single folded in half and plied up. Both involve re-winding the spun yarn from the bobbin of a spinning wheel (where it's an absolute necessity) or from a spindle.

Me, I'm lazy. I like to be lazy. I promote winding spindles in a special way so that I can, after spinning, just slide that cop of yarn off the spindle onto a slim bit or stick of wood or so for storage. (Chopsticks, by the way, work fine.) And the way that I wind my yarn results in a stable, spindle-shaped cop of yarn that is essentially something not too unlike a center-pull ball. So I tested plying directly from the  cop (transferred to a slim stick) onto the spindle... and it works, and very very well too.

There's me doing it...

... and a close-up with a slightly different hand position that occurs quite frequently during the process.


So... here's a method that is efficient, easy to use, will result in no waste of yarn singles, and does not require extra tools (you can use a spindle stick to ply from). And I'm hooked on this new technique.

There's this half-joking rule for IT guys and programmers that goes:

If you have a job to do and need to find out how long it will take, do the following.
Estimate the length of time you will need to do the job. Now take that number and increase it to the next number of magnitude - minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and so on.
Now you add three. That's how long it will take.

Maybe I should start to use this rule as a hard-and-steady rule for my work stuff - like getting the webpage overhauled (well, yes, that did go on hiatus for quite a while), the online shop running (I didn't realise how much Holy Saint Bureaucracius would need to be revered) or the Spinning Experiment all wrapped up.

Ah, the Spinning Experiment. Yes, the results have been found and the paper is in the processing; but I have one thing left to do with the data, and that is cleaning it up a little, translating some of the extra info into English and then packing it up nicely for everyone to download from the Forum webpage. And for that, I need to sort through the yarn cop photos.

I took at least three photos from each sample, and I will just upload one, the best one regarding light and contrast. So I need to pick out those that should be uploaded, resize them a bit and then pack them into a .zip file. And that's still left to do. Sometimes I'm really, really amazed at how much time that Experiment gobbled up... though I'd do it again, it has been totally worth it.

And sometime soon, you will get a note on this blog that the data is up...

A while ago, in Freienfels, I was presented with a bit of modern, dyed wool in a top, in different hues from brownish with a tinge of orange to deep raspberry-red.

I spun it on the hand-spindle, and then I used the opportunity to try a new plying technique, somehow related to plying from both ends of a yarn cake. I'm going to give the technique another try during the next days, and I'm planning a proper report then. Until that time, though - here's a picture of the red yarn in plying progress.

Somehow, the time this year flies like crazy - I just realised that it is almost Ascension Day. There was a bunch of things that I had planned to finish before the long weekend that this induces... but I will probably not manage all of them.

That greenish blackboard is looking a bit less green and more black today, thanks to a bunch of things to do finished since Friday (and thus vanished from the board). On the list for today is packing a bunch of files and sending them off: the article about the spinning experiment results is finished, and I'll give it a last once-over before getting it to its destination.

Associated with this, I am planning to put all the experiment data online so that everybody interested can download the results and do additional research, develop theories, or - in case of the spinners  - see how their spinning looks on a survey card. I have to go over the database for this and make sure that everything is in there that should be in and that nothing is in there that shouldn't, and that will probably need another few days. You will hear about it on this blog, of course.

Spinning experiment work, here I come again!

(This was supposed to go live during last week - on the 12th, to be exact. Why on earth it never did - beats me. I'm serving it to you now instead. And I'm retroactively sorry for the blog silence.)

I had an unplanned-for splurging moment in Freienfels, when I went to Sabine's stall on Sunday afternoon and decided that yes, that was my cardigan hanging there in the back of her stall (some assembly required).


I have been ogling the pinwheel sweater (ravelry link) for a good while now, but I absolutely wanted a very nice, gradual colour change. With blues and greys, and maybe some teal. I had been thinking about using Kauni wool, but after knitting my legwarmers last autumn, I decided not to use Kauni ever again - my hand spinning on a bad day is less irregular than that skein I had.

Then I was pondering getting some top, dyed in a gradual colour change, and spin the yarn for the pinwheel. But I don't get to spin much, and the yarn would be very thin, or quite irregular and ugly, or plied from 4 to 5 singles, and I can't see myself finishing anything like that before I'm about 120 years old. Plus I am sort of unwilling to spin dyed top in large amounts. (I much prefer to spin historically prepared wool, nowadays.)

So... I splurged on an array of blues and greys, in really thick and deliciously soft yarn. And I wound the first two balls, on my day off after Freienfels. And started knitting.



Of course, it wouldn't be me knitting if there wouldn't be some modifications. Basic pattern is the pinwheel sweater, but with left-leaning increases instead of yarn-overs, and starting with four stitches from an I-cord "belly button" for a better and easier start.

And I am knitting with two yarns at one time, making "barberpole stripes" for that more or less gradual colour change; each of the two colours has four increases, so I don't have the alternating increase round and plain round, but always the same round (except for where the increases are). One of the yarns increases right before the green markers, the other right before the white markers; each double-round starts with the white-marked yarn. And I've made a bit of progress since taking these pictures - though it will take some time still until I can put in the armholes.

Hooray knitting!

(Update: Since my day off yesterday was partly spent knitting on this, I am by now just a little past the armhole line - so there's garishly red thread knitted in there, to take out later and knit the sleeves on.)

It's always planning time.

And I'm thinking and planning about extending my range of wares a bit more, maybe for the next summer season. Yes, I know it's early, but those things can take a good amount of time.
One of the things that I am thinking about to include is a niddy-noddy (or stick reel) after historical evidence. I have looked at the tools linked on Larsdatter, and I have a few more things in my bookshelf, but I haven't decided on one yet.

I'd like to offer a niddy-noddy that is in keeping with the sources (best would be a completely surviving one) and not too large - the Oseberg find is quite big, and I'd much prefer a smaller one. In addition, I am very happy to hear about your experiences with niddy-noddies or other stick reel variations to make sure that it's not only historically correct as far as possible, but also get the functional details right, and that I choose a model for the reproductions that will also suit a modern buyer.

So... gentle readers, what do you expect from a reeling tool? Do you happen to know of a find of a complete one (except the obvious Oseberg one)? Would you buy a reconstructed medieval niddy-noddy? And how much would you be budgeting for it? Or rather spend money on some other textile tool - like an embroidery frame, or a distaff?

I'm being very lazy today, and I'll just point you to a very interesting article over on the Abby's Yarns blog about the debate whether the hand spindle or the spinning wheel is the better tool for spinning.

Abby comes from the Andes, and she learned how to use a low-whorl hand spindle for production spinning. Do read her article - it's  a really, really good one.