SpinnySpinny

So now I’ve got the second bobbin of brown cotton started. Just as dull as the first. I’m getting slightly less broken yarn so far, but only by kicking The Boyfriend out of the house to remove distractions. I’m hoping to get this done before the weekend but that is going to require a lot of spinning time. I don’t normally have muscle aches after spinning but using the fastest ratio takes more effort to treadle and it’s leaving me with lower back pain. But, strangely, not anywhere else. It’s still not what I would call aerobic exercise, however.

I have such a light tension that I get some snarls winding on. But I can’t increase it or the yarn will break even more. I don’t normally rewind bobbins before plying, but the snarls will cause problems so I rewound the first bobbin to another to fix it. I’m strangely happy that it only broke three times in the process. Better now than during plying, anyway. I got some cardboard storage bobbins for this sort of thing but I don’t want to ply this fine yarn untensioned. I just used a spinning bobbin I don’t expect to need right away. Normally I don’t bother because I wind pretty evenly while spinning. Yes, winding a nice even storage bobbin makes for easy plying. But as long as you pay attention and not make horribly uneven and loose bobbins while spinning, it isn’t such a big deal. I rarely do it for any reason other than I need an empty bobbin and I don’t want to toss the yarn.

Nothing much going on except more cotton. I’m finally almost finished with the first bobbin. I am still losing a lot to broken yarn, although I’m getting better at catching thin spots before they break. Rethreading the flyer wastes a lot of time. Fine cotton is some of the most boring stuff ever, I’m not so hung up on spinning that I won’t buy yarn if I can get basically the same thing millspun. I’m not interested in strange colors so basically what I’m making is the same stuff I have cones of in storage for weaving. I like working with handspun wool because I start with fleece and there’s lots of interesting natural colors and textures to work with and I can prepare it exactly the way I want. I think most commercially prepared wool is just as boring as this cotton, punctuated only by picking out bad bits from lousy high-speed prep.

I never liked spinning cotton before and I hate it even more now. I can’t do it if I’m the least bit tired. I tried to spin yesterday when I had a few minutes and I broke more yarn than got on the bobbin. I still haven’t had a chance to do much with the charka, I hope to have some time next week to take it over to the library. It’s been too windy to sit outside and spin. Sometime when I’m not tired and not driving all over creation or any number of other non-textile things. I stopped by the office yesterday afternoon for what I thought would be just a minute or two and ended up spending the next several hours with a soldering iron (and remembering why I will never make it as an electronics tech.) So much for getting any spinning done. But all that stuff gets shipped off Monday, with the people soon thereafter. I could go spin in the office while they are gone. Daylight! Open windows!

I’ve got about 6g of extra fine brown cotton spun for the two-ply skein and I think it’s taken me about 10 hours to do that much. I’m losing 25% in broken yarn along the way. I’m going to continue to use the Lendrum because it’s more than fast enough and I can see what I’m doing. I can’t find a comfortable place to spin with the charka at home and I still haven’t worked out how I can both turn the wheel and still see the yarn at arm’s length without inciting major back spasms. And after I finish this, there are still two more extra fine skeins, one cotton and one silk. I’m not sure quite what the second half kilometer of cotton is supposed to tell that the first doesn’t, that I know how to spin this fiber or that I have minimum 50 hours to sit there for each skein. Based on previous samples, I expect the two-ply skein to be around 450m and single 900.

I can only spin about four hours a day at most just because I can’t sit like that for longer. And that’s when I don’t have other responsibilities. This week I’m both driving to Los Angeles to pick up solar panels and planning a fundraising party. If I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment today, I’d be out picking up plastic electrical enclosures. As it is, I’m merely waiting for someone to come get the key for the truck instead. It’s probably best I not bring up the state of the kitchen. (When I’m not spinning, I’m planning a test deployment of wireless computers for Uganda with the “startup” non-profit we’re involved with. Fun and professionally rewarding but a lot of work and it is still mostly being funded by personal credit cards.)

Today was my spinning guild meeting, so I got to hang out with a bunch of spinners. The program was on handheld distaffs so I got several more pictures for the distaff page. One member was impressed with my photographic professionalism because I brought a black cloth to use as a backdrop. It’s the same one I’ve been using all along. It also happens to be one of my spinning lap cloths, too. I look at my yarn when I spin, and I can’t see it very well if I don’t have a contrast background. There were also several comments about my matched set of wrist supports. I don’t currently have major trouble with repetitive stress injury from spinning and I’d like to keep it that way. I was applauded for figuring this out beforehand and doing something about it. I’ve been meaning to write something about spinning ergonomics but I haven’t gotten there yet.

I’ve now got the borrowed charka. A very nice piece of equipment, I must say. Everything the Bosworths make is perfectly finished and finely tuned. I can’t come up with enough good words about their stuff even if it’s pricey. The fit and finish of the charkas just can’t be compared to the Indian ones, people I know who don’t care at all about spinning admire them for the engineering. I spent the meeting with the same brown cotton — I didn’t bring anything else knowing I’d have the charka. I even remembered to bring a towel to fold up and sit on, because they work best on a large flat surface and in this case that can only mean the floor. I’m not sure where I can set it up here because I can’t sit on the floor without something to lean against and floor space is already at a premium. Maybe I’ll go find a quiet corner at the library. One very nice thing about all the charkas is they fold up and fit in a small bag. The book charkas are quite literally that, less than the size of a good hardcover trashy novel.

I was also able to get a few more items from the guild library, I returned the copy of Spinning Designer Yarns and picked up some old Spin-Off issues and Fleece in your hands. I needed that book for some last details on wools for one of the tables. I could tell that the author of the wool table had it, as much of the required information comes directly from it. One thing I’ve noticed is that if you locate the correct book, filling out the tables is easy. Between Fleece in your hands and The essentials of yarn design for handspinners, I think I could almost do the whole wool table right there. But, ever the engineer, I have to look elsewhere to confirm that what I find reflects current reality. That was really important for the colored cotton data as much has changed in recent years.

One of the magazine issues had an article about one of the few sheep not covered, Tunis, and another on rare breeds (although I already have what I need about those.) The other has Rita Buchanan’s article about woolen and worsted and why she thinks the terms and the concepts both need to be allowed a graceful demise so the rest of us can move on. There was also the results of the 2000 reader survey, which I vaguely remember submitting. I recall at the time I was getting frustrated by the growing number of knitting articles. I added my own write-in reply of nålbinding for what I did with my yarns. I guess few other people did because it wasn’t mentioned. (It’s a looped needle technique somewhat related to crochet and far predates true knitting.) There are about a dozen issues in the guild library and going through them is both fun and frustrating. I started thinking about what I was working on at the time and that the reason I was rummaging through the box in the first place is because almost all my books are still in storage back east. With one exception, I own all those issues but I only have access to the ones since I moved to California. Same thing with Fleece in your hands, which is how I knew I would find the information I needed in there. I try not to get too whiny about that but it is annoying that my temporary storage is now three years and counting. Several details of my COE work, not to mention everyday life, would be much simpler if I had the things still sitting in Atlanta.