There are two key sets of terms that I've been throwing around without really getting into them, and it's about time to address that. First, woolen and worsted. Second, S and Z twist. We'll start with the twist, because that's easy.
Spinning is basically a matter of adding twist to a bundle of fibers to make them stronger and so they stay together. When you do that, you immediately have to make a decision about which way you're twisting the fibers, because if you alternate the twist comes undone and everything falls apart. Bad plan. Most handspinners naturally spin Z, which is what happens when you spin the spindle or the wheel clockwise, which is a very natural motion for right-handed people, but either is possible. It's called that because the twist in the resulting yarn angles to the right, like the diagonal in the letter Z. Spinning S means you're spinning counterclockwise, with the resulting twist angling left, like the middle of the letter S.
Machines, on the other hand, don't care, and as far as I've been able to tell, basically all commercial yarns available today are plied (two or more strands twisted together) or S spun. The vast majority of people won't notice or care. However, it means that there are a number of possible weaving and other textile effects that show up historically that basically don't ever happen in modern weaving. For example, there is a subtle visible difference between weaving where the warp is Z spun singles and the weft is S spun singles, and there are also examples of using S and Z spun yarns to create specialized plaids by making both warp and weft stripes. So one of the things that I'm hoping to do with this project is to explore not just the extended processing (fulling, brushing, shearing) but also to work with things like that where the yarns basically don't exist unless you make them.
The other important terms are woolen and worsted. They're basically two ends of a spectrum of how to process wool into yarn. On the one end is worsted, where the yarn is combed, basically just the way it sounds - with large combs, so that you get only the longest pieces very well organized and smooth, and then it is spun with the fingers held closed to make it as smooth as possible. This is comparatively rare and the sort of thing that suits are made of these days. The other end of the spectrum is woolen yarn, which is carded, which uses all the wool including the short bits, and the spinner's hand is more open, all of which results in a fuzzier, softer, loftier yarn. If you visualize a knitting yarn, it's almost certainly woolen spun.
A lot of yarn is also kind of intermediate or semi-woolen/semi-worsted/semi-whatever, so by and large the categorization is kind of confusing and the distinction tends to not mean as much modernly.
So for this project, what I want to work towards is that most common type of 14th century English broadcloth, which is a worsted Z-spun warp and a woolen S-spun weft, and then show the effect of all the different levels of processing. But since we're doing all this, ideally I also want to compare what happens with a Z/Z fabric and S/S. Also in the ideal world, it would be best to drop spin the warp while wheel spinning the woolen weft is acceptable.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Time to dress
I haven't reported back in a while, but things are progressing. Thus far, I've wound off the white worsted warp, sized it with gelatin and started dressing the loom. I didn't end up oiling the yarn, mostly due to forgetting a critical moment, but I don't think it's going to be a problem. Maybe next time.
I did end up deciding to go with a 4 yard length. If I wanted to do all possible variations of all the samples, I probably would want 5, but this is the commercial worsted, so it's not actually supposed to need as much finishing as the woolen pieces, and I'm thinking that there's not a lot of point in doing all the processing of all the twills. The vast majority of the period woolens seem to be worsted warp, woolen weft in tabby, because all the processing seriously obscures the weave, so why bother? But I am kind of curious if the twill will make any difference in the finished product, so I will probably do at least one twill with everything. However, we have the opportunity to do an unusual set of experiments, which is to play with S/Z combinations in the warp and weft, because this project has access to two handspinners and now that I have a spinning group 1-2 time per week I'm getting a LOT more spinning done, so we can put out a good deal of "to order" yarn for ourselves to play with. And in fact we're plotting a fiber processing day soon with intent to crank through a whole lot of the washed fleeces we have on hand and get them ready for all the spinning before the weather really turns.
I have some leftover white warp that I'll use for some of the samples and the rest of the worsted/worsted will be in white/grey. I haven't decided on a woolen yarn yet for the worsted/woolen samples, because the Jaggerspun is going to be way too small. However, odds are very good that I have something in the stash that will work if I do a little digging.
I haven't tried sizing before, so lacking more specific guidance, I dumped a (very expired) packet of gelatin into a bowl, poured some boiling water over it and then dunked the warp chain in, and let it hang dry. I also used the same gelatin to size a friend's vastly more delicate linen warp, where it made a much more noticable difference than in the sturdy and coarse worsted warp.
Contrary to usual recommended practice, I generally dress the loom front-to-back, mostly because of 1) habit and 2) the way my room is set up. The table loom is up against a wall, so it's most convenient to get at from the front, plus working all the stuff through the loom from the front means that you're guaranteeing that it's all gone through the heddle and reed by the time the warp is wound on, which is both good and bad. In this case, I have extremely sturdy warp, so the extra stress of going through it twice isn't a problem, but when we get to delicate handspun singles I'll have a lot more incentive to dress back-to-front.
Note to myself for next time - if you're doing 90 ends with a twill pattern, remember that 88 is divisible by 4 and leave floating selvedges. However, since this is very preliminary I don't actually care enough to re-thread it all to move those two ends to either size instead of just the left.
So where things stand now is that I have the warp sleyed and threaded into the heddles, so the next step is going to be to wind on. Unfortunately, the first step there is going to have to be to find a wrench, because the one that lives by the loom seems to have gone walkabout, and the bolt holding the ratchet on the brake is almost stuck, so tools are needed to loosen it up so I can wind the warp on when I get home tonight.
While I was googling the proper term (dog? pawl? ratchet? one of those...) I came across a conversion kit for a friction brake, and I think I neeeeeeds it, because weaving is decidedly slow when you can only weave 4 inches before you have to get up and advance the warp, so that one thing could increase my productivity immensely, as well as improve my habits, because advancing frequently is definitely recommended, and that's more likely to happen if I don't have to get up. So kit improvements could go a long way to making that more pleasant. I will have to ask my carpenter husband what he thinks...
Looking at what I've posted so far, it looks like it about time I went back for that explanation of spinning terms that I promised a while ago, because this all makes perfect sense to me, but understanding it depends on a lot of vocabulary that probably is completely foreign to anybody who isn't already pretty deeply immersed in yarn terminology. So that'll probably be the next post. In the meantime, here's a useful glossary.
I did end up deciding to go with a 4 yard length. If I wanted to do all possible variations of all the samples, I probably would want 5, but this is the commercial worsted, so it's not actually supposed to need as much finishing as the woolen pieces, and I'm thinking that there's not a lot of point in doing all the processing of all the twills. The vast majority of the period woolens seem to be worsted warp, woolen weft in tabby, because all the processing seriously obscures the weave, so why bother? But I am kind of curious if the twill will make any difference in the finished product, so I will probably do at least one twill with everything. However, we have the opportunity to do an unusual set of experiments, which is to play with S/Z combinations in the warp and weft, because this project has access to two handspinners and now that I have a spinning group 1-2 time per week I'm getting a LOT more spinning done, so we can put out a good deal of "to order" yarn for ourselves to play with. And in fact we're plotting a fiber processing day soon with intent to crank through a whole lot of the washed fleeces we have on hand and get them ready for all the spinning before the weather really turns.
I have some leftover white warp that I'll use for some of the samples and the rest of the worsted/worsted will be in white/grey. I haven't decided on a woolen yarn yet for the worsted/woolen samples, because the Jaggerspun is going to be way too small. However, odds are very good that I have something in the stash that will work if I do a little digging.
I haven't tried sizing before, so lacking more specific guidance, I dumped a (very expired) packet of gelatin into a bowl, poured some boiling water over it and then dunked the warp chain in, and let it hang dry. I also used the same gelatin to size a friend's vastly more delicate linen warp, where it made a much more noticable difference than in the sturdy and coarse worsted warp.
Contrary to usual recommended practice, I generally dress the loom front-to-back, mostly because of 1) habit and 2) the way my room is set up. The table loom is up against a wall, so it's most convenient to get at from the front, plus working all the stuff through the loom from the front means that you're guaranteeing that it's all gone through the heddle and reed by the time the warp is wound on, which is both good and bad. In this case, I have extremely sturdy warp, so the extra stress of going through it twice isn't a problem, but when we get to delicate handspun singles I'll have a lot more incentive to dress back-to-front.
Note to myself for next time - if you're doing 90 ends with a twill pattern, remember that 88 is divisible by 4 and leave floating selvedges. However, since this is very preliminary I don't actually care enough to re-thread it all to move those two ends to either size instead of just the left.
So where things stand now is that I have the warp sleyed and threaded into the heddles, so the next step is going to be to wind on. Unfortunately, the first step there is going to have to be to find a wrench, because the one that lives by the loom seems to have gone walkabout, and the bolt holding the ratchet on the brake is almost stuck, so tools are needed to loosen it up so I can wind the warp on when I get home tonight.
While I was googling the proper term (dog? pawl? ratchet? one of those...) I came across a conversion kit for a friction brake, and I think I neeeeeeds it, because weaving is decidedly slow when you can only weave 4 inches before you have to get up and advance the warp, so that one thing could increase my productivity immensely, as well as improve my habits, because advancing frequently is definitely recommended, and that's more likely to happen if I don't have to get up. So kit improvements could go a long way to making that more pleasant. I will have to ask my carpenter husband what he thinks...
Looking at what I've posted so far, it looks like it about time I went back for that explanation of spinning terms that I promised a while ago, because this all makes perfect sense to me, but understanding it depends on a lot of vocabulary that probably is completely foreign to anybody who isn't already pretty deeply immersed in yarn terminology. So that'll probably be the next post. In the meantime, here's a useful glossary.
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