International pi day

Let's first see if blogger accepts the pi sign - as it didn't, here is a picture of a pi sign:

I wanted to celebrate the day by making a drawdown showing such a sign, but it turns out that 16 shafts are not enough to make a nice pi.

However. Pi has an infinite number of decimals, so let me instead present an infinite number of (ok, just 8) ways to achieve a straight 2/2 twill, all with straight treadling.

First: a straight 2/2 twill on a 4-shaft broken threading:

Next, an 8-shaft, 12-treadle variant. (Why 12 treadles? - because the draft started out as a weft-emphasis plaited twill, which needed 12 treadles)

However, that many treadles are not needed - in fact, you only need 4. Any 4:

A 10-shaft variant. Could this be called a "broken point threading"? As before, only 4 treadles are needed.

Onwards we go... 16 shafts, with a couple of threadings I don't know why one would like to use:

As I actually have 20 treadles on my trusty CM - here is one that uses all of them:

So why the label "cultural differences"? Because it shows why some of us dumb Swedes do not understad the term "twill threading" so often used on the international forums... (I have writtten about it before - here is one example on this blog, here is an article on my website.)

Once spotted...

To think that I hadn't seen this kind of double pulleys (or, not consciously, anyway) until a couple of months ago... now I see them everywhere.

Spotted at a flea market not far from here:

As (again) they were without companions, I left them for someone else to play with.

(And Jean, if you read this, the strange shaft-ties: I have given up on that, until I can get to the museum myself. They keep giving me the wrong references - )

How to spin better linen yarns

Many authorities "of the time" assert that yarn spun with "the new method" (ie with a DFW of the Mager type) has a much, much better quality - as if consistent grist and twist come automatically with the wheel type. (Maybe it does... after all, I haven't got mine operational yet)

To let you all know as much as I now do, I took a stab at translating the first part of the Book with the Hopeless Title - the part that should instruct us all how to use this famous wheel.

(It can be that you, too, become a bit disappointed with the contents. But I assure you: this is all there is!)

The first part, same as the other, is now available in .pdf-form, the translated variant here with text in both Swedish and (my attempt to translate it into) English. The plate is on the very last page. (Comments on the translation(s) are most welcome!)

There is also the "original" (transcribed, some sort of Swedish) - found here. The drawing is on the last page.

For my local-ish Swedish friends: do you know anything about the Gårdsby Lin-Institut, at Gårdsby outside Växjö, that was in existence 1811-1827 (or -28)? There is a rumour that they used double flyer wheels there, too, but as the Mager type was not known until 1843, I would be very interested to know what kind of DFWs they were using.

How to build your own double (or more!) flyer spinning wheel

As told here, I have borrowed the Ekenmark book with the hopeless title (Afhandling Om Den förbättrade och förenklade Nya Magerska Linspinnings-Methoden, Jemte En wida ändamålsenligare Method, för så wäl Dubbel- som Enkelspinning, med förändring af en wanlig Spinnrock, både för en och flere personer på en och samma gång, hwarigenom den motswarar nyttan af 4 serskilta wanliga spinnrockar, Äfwensom Om bästa sättet, att få linet genom sjelfwa Rötningen mycket finare och mjukare, så att det derigenom blifwer ojemförligt ändamålsenligare till båda Spinning, garn och wäfnader, än hwad genom den wanliga Linrötningen och torkningen kan åstadkommas.
Utarbetad Af GUSTAF EKENMARK och HUSTRU
Med en större Lithografierad Planch
Stockholm Tryckt hos Lundberg & Comp. 1848)

I have also transcribed it (gothic print...), probably with some mistakes here and there.

Today I can offer anybody nerdy enough to want to know how to alter an ordinary saxony type spinning wheel to accommodate as many as 4 flyers, without "compromising" the original wheel: there is one .pdf here with text in both Swedish and (my attempt to translate it into) English - no light reading this (I doubt I have ever encountered sentences as long as in this text... hard to read in Swedish, even harder to make some sort of sense in English). This file has a couple of illustrations enlarged from the drawing (which is on the very last page).

There is also the "original" (transcribed, some sort of Swedish) - found here. No extra illustrations, but the drawing is on the last page.

If I end this post with "enjoy!" - would you think I'm having you on?!?

Spotted on a countertop:

a different take on block weave.

I didn't have a measuring tape, but each (tabby) square is approximately 1 1/2 centimetre.

Also, I did not look ar the back - I just assumed it would be totally reversible.
Started to count threads, from the photo. There are 30 ends in each tabby square, and the patterned squares are "different" - there is a slight warp emphasis on the vertical striped part, but the horizontally striped part does not have the same structure.

Try as I might, I could not get the analysis right, or at least could not make a reversible structure.
I settled on a compromize:

To get 30 ends per tabby square I had to skip one end per block.
As it is so much easier to have a "continuous" threading/treadling, I constructed a variant, with 32 ends per tabby square (or 16 ends per block).

The patterned squares are now a variant of the "rackel" weave described on this guild page, combined with tabby - and I think it still gives the same overall impression (as the original piece of cloth)

Don't have 16 shafts? I played with 8:

With cotton 16/2 sett at (say) 12 epcm, each square will be a generous centimetre square, after wet finishing...:

The plot thickens...

Thanks to my friend Åsa I now have a plan! (A "plan" as in - well, you'll see)

It turns out my DFW is a modified Mager clone.
(Who Mager is? Wait and see, I'll have to read the whole book first.)
It also appears that is it a flyer-lead, bobbin-drag (is that "Irish tension"? I always get confused about the brake type wheels and their terminology).
But there is still one mystery...

Here is the overview of the construction drawing:

The tensioner pulley should be mounted top-down, and apparently wedged in place. (Though the wedge can't be seen, but there is no other fastening shown either)

Two detail pics:

This explains two mystery holes I have - where the green arrow is, mine has holes on both sides. BUT: there should be holes where the red arrow is - holes pointing forward.
On the right-hand maiden (is it called maiden even if it is an integral part of the structure?) there is a hole on the outside, but on the left side there is no hole at all.
(And: "maidens" or "uprights" - they seem to be one and the same piece of wood going from the table to the top. No way these "maidens" have been/can be made to turn!)

Speculating: can it be that there is just ONE brake-band, braking both bobbins at the same time? It would, I think, make the adjustment easier?

(And I still haven't made the axle retainers, so I can't try it out. Yet.)

Speaking of linens

Look what I found in a local, um, curiosity shop (she would be offended if I called it a flea market - ):

The printing says, from left to right: (logo) pillowcase material (with a rather odd spelling: örngåttsväf When was it spelled "örngått"?); shrunk; linen finish (what is that? Calendered?); 28 metres; free from sizing. (I should mention that it is cotton.)

The "bale" now held 12 metres, according to the label. Even with a very nice hand, what could I do with 12 metres of pillowcase material (this means it is 62 cm wide - or 62 c/m, as the print says)? So I let it stay at the shop...
Because of that, I can't give you a thread count - but I doubt it is less than 40/cm. On the other hand, it is machine-spun.

Come to think of it - how many textile-y "everyday" words are there that are mis-used? Bed linens became cottons many years ago, but are still called linens. A friend of mine (a weaving teacher) says it is quite ok, that it is in fact standard in industrial parlance, to use the word "silk" for any very long fibre - extruded viscose, for instance. (Like "silk velvet")