Spinning Speed Ponderings, Part 6.

And because I arrived at the conclusion that it might be interesting for you to watch, here's a video showing... spinning. Or, to be more precise, drafting. That's me production spinning for the current project, and the bobbin that I made this video on averaged out at a little more than 160 m per hour. (Personal best.) All you will see is my drafting motion, and I found it very, very boring to look at, but then I've looked at this from a slightly different angle for a lot of hours by now, and it's much more interesting if you're actually doing it. (Still of limited interest though. A hundred times a very little will still not be much...)

Again, this is possible because the wool is very easy to spin and the thread is in my absolute comfort zone, thickness-wise. I need to concentrate more than I have to do at slower speeds, and stopping the spinner for adjusting the winding lead on the flyer has to be done slowly and with care, otherwise there will be a lot of slack thread. Similarly, starting up again should be done slowly.

Both hands are working here, by the way, though the front hand (my left hand, I'm strongly left-handed) does most of the moving. The other, though, subtly presses down on the fibre a way back or lets go, which helps me to draft evenly, and turns the end of the top to help catch the fibres that I want to catch.

The spinner can do a max speed of about 1650 rpm, and it's set to a little less than 3/4 max, so it's probably runnning somewhere around 1000 to 1200 rpm. I have about 1.5 bobbins to go for finishing the warp, that's a bit more than 1.2 kilometers. And then... the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of the yarn is in the weaving (and then wearing).