It really is amazing how much time a single small macro can gobble up.

Especially if, when you are almost through, you decide that the process might be even better suited to the aims if done a little differently. Because it does make a difference whether you run a median filter first, or whether you filter out outliers first, or make a transformation to binary first and run filters later on.

Anyways, I now have a method to turn a scan of thread samples like this:

into this:


and then read out the thread thickness of every single one of these threads.

Now I only need to wrangle the gazillions of datapoints into something resembling histograms or some other form of legible visualisation. And be amazed again at how much time a single little spinning experiment can eat.

I may or may not have found a way to consistently and quickly measure both the diameter of hand-spun yarns and their thickness variance. With no highly specialised tools for textile analysis.

Actually, with very few tools at all.

I will know whether I can go "Hah!" in joy about that once I have bent my mind around the working functions of one or a few picture analysis programmes... and then I'll tell you all about it.

Things are still busy here, and a good bit of that is due to a bit of additional research I'm doing on the Spinning Experiment data. And totally related to this, we have figured out most of the things we needed to figure out for the next Textile Forum, and I will be working to update the website during one of the next days, and writing the call for papers for the Forum.

If you are already thinking about it: We will be in Mayen, Germany, from September 10 to September 16, and the focus topic will be "Metal in Textile Crafts". Stay tuned to learn more about it soon!

There are times when I am going "oh, sure, we can do that!" and then, much later, this harmless little phrase comes back and bites me in the butt.

Like it did in regard to the introduction article for the Textile Forum proceedings book which is under construction at the moment (I've been told that most of the contributors are writing furiously these days, just like me). Yes, of course Sabine and I can write an intro about the Forum - why it is what it is, what the idea behind it was, how it is supposed to work.

And somehow this little article, only intended as a short intro, is now developing a life of its own. Dragging me off into side aspects and luring my mind away to think about how much of a craft process series one single crafter should know, or should need to master. After all, there's lots and lots of work and skill involved in seemingly simple things, like a cheeseburger or a pencil. (If you're only going to click one of these links - click the pencil one.)

So here I am, pondering things... and expanding the little intro article a way beyond what it was originally intended to be.

And you know what? I like that.

I'm delving into the Spinning Experiment data again, this time with a slightly different angle, and I've been reading a lot of spinning pages and how-to-do's and how to design your own yarn stuff yesterday. It's really interesting, and I get the feeling it's really different, goal-wise, from how historical yarns were spun.

Now if I could only find out why. Why is soft yarn seen as so wonderful today, even if it doesn't stand up well against abrasions? Is this our throwaway society? Or general wimpyness? Or different aesthetics? Hard to tell, unfortunately...

One of the topics during the weekend that I had chats about was about wool. And spinning.

I had the wonderful opportunity to try out quite a few different spinning wheels, both in a shop and at the conference, and one of the things that sort of caught me was the expression of "twists to an inch".

Really, folks? Twists per inch? Who wants to count that high? Plus archaeological threads never give the twists per inch - they give a spinning angle. For obvious reasons, because you do not untwist an old yarn.

A basic fact is that the historical yarns are much harder spun than what modern spinners usually do. A spinning angle of 30 to 45 degrees is quite common, and that is a lot of twist in a bit of yarn. The first time I was doing replicas of fine, historical threads, I was amazed at the high twist they had - and now I'm totally addicted to them. The soft-spun yarns that are so often to be found today are nice to wear, but they will not last for as long as a good worsted high-twist yarn. So if you are trying to spin historically and have a modern spinner's background... your wool is probably underspun.

You can measure the spinning angle by drawing a straight line on a piece of paper, then draw lines at some different angles (10, 20, 30, 45, 60 degrees) towards that line. Now you can align your thread with the first, straight line and see which of the slanted lines drawn on the paper will best match the slant of the fibres in your yarn. And if you are doing this, I'd be curious to hear what your spinning angle is in your "typical" yarn!

paantha said...
I have learnt to spin with a wheel and a drop spindle but I haven't yet got the hang of medieval-style spinning and I can't make my distaff work. :(
However, I do have one piece of advice for you, which holds true for all craft/textile teaching (and probably a few other things too). If you need to teach a left-handed person when you are right-handed (or vice versa) sit them opposite you and make them copy you as if you are mirror images of each other. My neighbour who taught me to spin was very careful to do this when teaching me to knit and crochet, so I do those right-handed (like I write). However, I just noticed that I spin left-handed, despite being right-handed, because we forgot to implement that when she taught me spinning...

Thanks for the hint about handedness - but I think that handedness might not apply to spinning that much. I am left-handed and very severely so, but I spin with my distaff under the left arm, and my right hand as drafting/turning spindle hand. And I did not really learn from someone, so it was all my idea to do it this way around.
That said, when teaching, I do tell people they should experiment which hand they prefer for drafting more actively.

Karen said...
I love spinning with a distaff. I have a long one which I generally use when drafting with a short draw, and a hand held one, that I am just getting good at using, that I use when drafting with a long draw. The biggest problem I had when learning to use my distaffs was keeping a consistant draft. My first spindle-full on each was very uneven. But it just took practice. I worried more about being comfortable holding the distaff than what my thread looked like, and very quickly my thread improved. I hate to spin without one now.

Good luck with your workshop.

Thanks Karen! Yes, I think adapting to the distaff can be confusing at first, but good to hear that you are also addicted to them now!

Arachne said...
I'm still struggling with the distaff, I've tried both long ones and hand-held ones. My biggest problem is spinning with really long fibres (+ 20 cm) but it happens with shorter wool too: everything's fine in the beginning, but after a bit the fibres become wound so tightly round the distaff that I can't draw at all. I've tried arranging the wool as if it were flax on the distaff rather than wrapping the combed tops around it, but it still ended up a bunched-up mess after a while. Haven't given up yet, though...

Have you tried winding them off a bit more from time to time? I usually have quite a longish bit of the fibre band hanging down from my distaff, and the longer the fibres, the longer this free-hanging bit. As soon as it shortens enough to let fibres come from very near the distaff stick, I roll it a little so more of the fibre band unwraps and hangs freely down. So maybe if you try to leave more space between your hands and the distaff, it might help. And don't give up!