A Tiny Epiphany

I had a tiny epiphany last week.

I saw a YouTube video about handspinning--(not sure if it was the same video I'm attaching to this post) and I realized something that hadn't occurred to me before.

A hand spindle is nothing more than a stick--often a  stick that is tapered at both ends and thickest in the middle.  It's used to twist raw fiber into a smooth strong thread.  During the Middle Ages, whorls (the weight that makes the spindle spin at a particular rate to twist the fiber) were not permanently glued to the stick.  That not only means they could be easily replaced if the whorl broke, but they could be swapped out for different whorls.  Being able to change whorls matters because in general, the lighter the whorl is, the more twist it imparts to the fiber, and the finer the resulting thread is likely to be.  Heavier weights tend to result in slower spinning, the better to make thicker threads that need less twist.

All of that I had known before.  But what I realized in watching the video is that a spinner could use more than one whorl to obtain the particular speed of spin of a spindle.  (Take a look at the video above starting at about 1:47).  That means she could, at least in theory, change the spindle weight in tiny increments to achieve the type of thread she wanted to make.  It could also be used to improve the performance of a particular spindle/whorl combination, as Lois Swales indicates in the video.

It goes to show that one should never assume one knows everything about a particular subject; thinking about a topic from a different angle can result in new knowledge.

Sewing the Period Way--Some Observations

Tonight, I started working on my savanion. Now, I'm not only using my bronze needle, but I'm using linen thread (80/3, in case you were wondering) to sew it. This is the very first time I've sewn with linen thread.

I've been waxing each sewing thread by running it across my beeswax bar a few times, then running the thread between my fingers once or twice before I thread it into my needle. I'm doing this because I've been told that linen thread tends to be rough, and to be difficult to draw through the cloth (even if it's linen cloth) unless you wax it first.

I expected that the beeswaxing ritual would be an annoyance, and would do little good. Again, to my surprise, the technique works rather well and isn't that much of a distraction. The waxing also has the advantage of stiffening the thread just enough to make it much easier to thread it into the eye of the needle.

In addition, I've noticed that getting the thread off of one of my floss bobbins is turning out to be no more trouble than unwinding thread from a modern spool, and the deep notches on the bobbins keep the remaining thread from unraveling itself from the bobbin much better than the shallower notches on many modern spools do.

The moral of this story is, in my opinion, that the period way really is practical, if you understand it well enough to do it right.