Botanica Yarnfest this weekend was a lot of fun, and I found out, once again, that I get quite, quite nervous before doing an online livestream demo thingie. It's worse than doing  a real-life demo somehow, even though there are no people present. Probably because there are no people present... there's just no feedback whatsoever, nobody sitting down and waiting for you to start, no room vibes to be read and acted upon. I find I actually prefer having a bunch of people look at me and being able to look back instead of having just that tiny little screen showing myself, so I can make sure I'm not running out of the picture.

Anyway, I did my demo, there were a few questions, I had some fun, and I did get some very nice feedback afterwards. I also managed to download the whole thing to my phone (which did the filming). It was not possible to re-post it to my own Instagram account, though; apparently that is only supported for videos up to 15 minutes, and mine is a bit over 30.

But there's youtube... so here you go, in case you'd like to see it: My demo of medieval spinning, with all the funny "big nose" camera effects that you get when you go close to the camera, and the weird portrait screen ratio helpfully provided by my phone.

Yesterday, I got asked on Instagram how much wool I can get on a spindle... which is a very good question.

It's been a rather long time since I last tried and measured this. Most of my spinning is done for a specific purpose, and most of the time that is demonstrating or testing something - which means I usually spin smaller amounts of yarn, frequently of very thin yarn. So it's rather rare for me to try and pack as spindle with yarn until it's really, really full.

What is "full", anyways? Different people have different opinions about that. For me, it means that the spindle will not run easily and efficiently anymore when I flick it. The point where this occurs will, of course, depend on a number of factors: The type of spindle, the technique you are using to spin, the kind of yarn you are making, the density of the fibre, the density of the yarn, how you wind it onto the spindle, the placement and size and weight of the whorls you are using. I also find that with the growing cop, it can be necessary to adjust how I wind the yarn. At the beginning, it's helpful to spiral the leading thread up the spindle shaft before making the half-hitch. With a large cop, this can sometimes stop working so well; then I wind around the bottom of the cop, go straight up to the tip of the spindle, and place the half-hitch.

As my spindle fills up, I also replace the whorl I used at the start with a smaller, lighter one, so that the spindle turns quickly and nicely again. At one point, no whorl is the best whorl. At some point, the spindle, now whorl-less, is so full that it will be harder and harder to flick it into a speedy rotation, and that is when I declare it full.

In yesterday's test case, that happened at a total weight of a little more than 50 grams. The spindle stick comes in at about 8-12 g, depending on the stick, so that means I fit about 40 g worth of thread onto the spindle.



Which, if you ask me, is a pretty decent amount.

I spent part of the day today standing in the wonderfully sun-warmed wintergarden, sorting these wonderful new arrivals:



Fresh wheel-thrown spindle whorls, with a new colour - there are some grey ones among the mix now, too! I'm all delighted with them.

They were lined up in neat rows according to their weight range:



Now they are in my shelf, sorted away, waiting to be sent to new homes... and, of course, waiting to be properly photographed so they can be listed in the shop! That will happen tomorrow, though, when the light is nice and bright but not too bright yet.

I'm not a huge fan of supported spinning, but I'm quite enjoying the technique when I get to do it. One of the things I remember wondering about when I first saw it was the use of a temporary cop - winding on the spun yarn near the tip of the spindle. It seemed weird to me to do that, as it means you have to wind off the temporary cop again and then wind on properly to the permanent cop.

This was one of the things that started to make sense a few years later, when I tried it with significantly more practice in spinning, and with more appreciation for spinning efficiency. Yes, you do wind your yarn twice with that technique - but it doesn't matter if the temporary cop is rather sloppy, so you can wind on very quickly (by twirling the spindle) and go on spinning. It also means that if you tend to add uneven amounts of twist in your makes, winding off and on again gives the twist a chance to partly redistribute and even out. One of the main pros for me, though, is the fact that winding to the temporary cop is less of a disruption in the process than winding to the permanent cop. I can wind much easier and better to the permanent cop if I take the spindle out of its bowl and place it on my leg or hold it in my hand, depending on the position of the rest of me and the spindle. Doing that is a major movement as compared to the small movements done during the spinning process. Add to that the fact that a typical make in supported spinning is much shorter than one in distaff spinning or long suspended spinning, where the winding process is already the main disruptor of the process, and it becomes quite clear that going from "spin position" to "winding position" is better done less often.

Not all variations of supported spinning use the temporary cop, though, and that is another thing I find fascinating with this type of spinning: There's a plethora of subvariations and possibilities. Like you can do a short draft as for worsted spinning, while the spindle twirls much like when you spin long suspended. This brings with it with the same necessity of having a feeling for when the spindle will stop, and twirling it again before it has come to rest completely. You can also do a kind of longdraft technique, either in the park-and-draft variation (which is easier) or in continuous spinning, and with the latter either drafting against the spindle weight, if your fibre is slippery enough to allow it, or helping with the hand close to the spindle by gripping the thread above the spindle.

If we're looking at evidence in medieval sources, supported spinning seems to be the exception, not the rule. Just like spinning with top-whorl spindles, there is a little bit of evidence for it, but not much. I know of one single picture showing a woman spinning with a spinning bowl; unfortunately, I've not made a proper note of where it is, and a quick internet search turned up the picture (yay!) but also no reference to where it's from (gnah).

I've done better with remembering the source of the image with a top-whorl spindle: it's in an English manuscript in the British Library, and it shows the Bearded Woman of Limerick spinning with distaff and top-whorl spindle. That's very nicely matching the fact that there are a few hooked metal spindles in the National Museum in Dublin that are very suitable for use as top-whorl spindles, possibly without an extra whorl in some cases.

Back in May, I posted about a rare picture showing a woman plying, and there was a bunch of comments (thank you! It's always nice to have some feedback, and some discussion), and now I've finally gotten around to try it.

I dug out two spindles, one quite full and one with just a little yarn on it, and a third empty one, and gave it a go.

Here's the picture again:

[caption id="attachment_5309" align="alignnone" width="411"] Bibliothèque Nationale de la France, Manuscript Latin 7330, liber astrologiae Georgii Zapari Zothori Fenduli, c 1301-1400. Fol. 30r, if I’ve interpreted things correctly. Permalink to the page in the digital BNF.


Because the picture looked a bit like there might be one strand of yarn running around her neck, and the other straight, I tried that first, thinking it might be easier that way to control tension. Well. It didn't work at all for me; it was hard to impossible to control the two spindles and winding off the yarn from them.

Consequently, I tried it straight from the two spindles - and oh, yes, that is much easier for me. Rolling off yarn from the two spindles in the left hand went surprisingly well and evenly, even though there was much less on one of the spindles. What I did was pull a length of yarn out with the right hand, then set the spindle into motion, moving my right hand up and down the length of doubled yarn while the spindle turned, to let the twist distribute evenly. Once enough twist was in the two plies, I wound the finished bit onto the spindle, then repeated by winding (pulling) the next length.

I'm not the Queen of Plying, and it's neither a job I particularly like, nor one I'm very good at, no matter the tool and method. This way to ply, though, felt like it could offer more control that I've had with other methods, not least because it is possible to control both spindles in the left hand individually. Opening or closing the fingers in question some more can fine-tune the tension on one of the yarns, and it's even possible to give one of them some extra turning motion to even out things, or to help when yarn gets "stuck" unwinding, as it sometimes does.

So... back to the picture. While most of the commenters and me suspected that there might be one thread running behind her back, Satekai very rightly observed the woman's also wearing a cloak (which is magically staying in place, but never mind that for the moment), and the "yarn" going across her shoulder might just as well be the outline of her cloak on the shoulder. Which is an interpretation that I'd now totally second, after a) my try and b) judging from two other comments: Joy Wandrey saying she has had good success, and was able to control tension quite well plying off two spindles (I assume that was direct as well, as there's no mention of anything being led around anything else) and Jane's comment about having problems when plying off two spindles, one held in front and one behind.

This is definitely something that I'll try again. It would be wonderful to have a quick, easy, and reliable plying method, and one that is documented for the Middle Ages to boot!

 

The two woad balls are drying slowly, and their outside is turning darker - blackish blue, or so I think.



Woad leaves, I also learned, have a rather characteristic smell... which is quite green, and quite interesting.

Another thing that is currently drying: The first batch of spindle whorls. It's time to make some more hand-formed ones, so I'll be doing that spread out over the next few days.



Which also means that if you have documentation about a (hand-formed) spindle whorl that you'd like to see in my shop, tell me about it! I'll then attempt to make a few approximations, and if they survive firing (which, sadly, can never be guaranteed) you can buy them...

While there are plenty of medieval images showing spinning with spindle and distaff, usually with the spinner shown in a position with the spindle hand/arm almost fully or fully extended, there's very little pictorial evidence for plying.

I've come across one image recently, though - this one:

[caption id="attachment_5309" align="alignnone" width="390"] Bibliothèque Nationale de la France, Manuscript Latin 7330, liber astrologiae Georgii Zapari Zothori Fenduli, c 1301-1400. Fol. 30r, if I've interpreted things correctly. Permalink to the page in the digital BNF.


That lady is not using a distaff, but instead she's holding two filled spindles in her left hand, and plies the threads together with the spindle hanging below her right hand.

Now that's definitely a rare picture, and a method I do have to try! Anyone here ever tried plying this way already? Or do you know more pictures like this? (Or, while I'm already blegging, images of spinners not in the classical one-arm-fully-extended position?)