Louet S70 and Louet S15

I have found that images of some spinning wheels are more easily found on the internet than others. So here are two classic Louet spinning wheels that are not in production and less easily found.

(Click on the image to see it larger.)

On the right is an S15, made in beech with a plywood drive wheel. It was orginally finished in a thick dark varnish which you can still see on one of the bobbins on the lazy kate. I don't know how old this wheel is, I know of at least 2 previous owners and expect there were many more. It could be around 20 years old. It arrived something of a wreck and has had several new bearings, new brake band, flyer shaft, treadle connector, lazy kate and two new three-speed bobbins. I was pleased to find that Louet make all the parts I needed. The difference between this and the similar S10 model is that the S10 has a round hole in the wheel which compensates for the weight of the footman and treadle for steadier spinning.

On the left is an S70, made in solid oak. This model and the S71(identical apart from a dark varnish) were made for only a couple of years, 1983-1985.

The S70 is a very new addition to my collection, it arrived last week from an ebay seller in the Netherlands, beautifully flat packed in a fairly small box. The postage was over 20 euros and all paid for in beautiful postage stamps, I've cut this out to keep!

You can find some other photos of older  Louet spinning wheels on the Low Lands Legacy website. Louet themselves only have photos of the models currently in production. More detailed information can be found on the Louet North America website.

The question arises from time to time, "Why do people want these old fashioned spinning wheels?". For me, the reason is that I met the talented art yarn spinner, Daniela Klopmann, of FeltStudioUK spinning on one on her stand at Woolfest in 2010. Not only are they easy to spin on, as the heavy drive wheel has good momentum, but they are ideal for bulky art yarns. They are also popular with people who have discovered that they are fast for plying and have huge bobbins for creating big skeins. Some people I know use them only for plying. Other people use them for spinning all kinds of yarn, from lace weight to bulky. Before anyone comments: I know they aren't the easiest wheel for learning to spin fine, and I wouldn't recommend them to someone who only spins fine, but nonetheless if the spinner can spin fine, the wheel can.

Three upright spinning wheels.

A family photo - my three little three upright spinning wheels.
Originally uploaded by Dorothy L

A family photo of my upright single treadle spinning wheels. All production wheels, all developed from the traditional Scottish upright wheels taken by settlers to New Zealand. Click on the photo to see a larger version hosted on Flickr.

On the left we have a 1976 Rappard Little Peggy. She's a two speed wheel and has seen considerable use at some time in the past, the metal of her flyer shaft is worn and you can see the footprint on her treadle. Recently aquired from ebay and in need of new leather flyer and bobbin bearings, otherwise in good working order.

In the centre, a little old Ashford Traveller, the original model as made from 1977-79 and identified with help of previous owner who bought it secondhand in 1980 and Mary Knox's website and book "New Zealand Spinning Wheels and their Makers", recommended to me by Spinningfishwife because shoulder problems can make righthand flyer wheels uncomfortable for me to use.

On the right, a modified Ashford Traveller, around 12-15 years old (I think..) with modern sliding hook flyer. Modifcations include the sycamore treadle that operates centrally and a lead weight on the inside of the wheel rim to balance the weight of the footman and give smoother treadling.

In the background you can see part of my American pendulum wheel.

YarnMaker

My new website is now up on the 'net, see here: YarnMaker: handspinning from fibre to textiles, it's a fairly basic site for now as I am busy working on the first edition, I'll revise it when the magazine is in print.

Thanks to everyone who is taking an interest, I appreciate your enthusiasm and support.

A handspun, madder-dyed weft.

I could ask you to guess what is pictured below:
For most people this is an unsual sight and unexpected, probably not a fair question.

This is the underside of my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel.

Ever since I got this wheel I was trying to track down and eliminate odd creaks and groans from the wheel. I tightened and replace many screws. In spite of my efforts it was getting more creaky, and becoming very hard to treadle, especially I discovered on un-carpeted floors - a clue here. With a bit of investigation I discovered that every time I pressed the treadle one of the legs moved sideways. I found the leg is fitted in with a screw, and unlike the other three legs it was loose. When I undid the screw I could easily take it out, but I could not get it to fit back in without wobbling as the hole it fitted into was oversized. What you see in the photo is a shim of old Christmas card taking up the spare space. It does the job, no more wobbly leg.

However, there was still a groaning from the treadle. I found that every single screw in the treadle needed an extra half turn. Having sorted this out, I oiled everything and went back to spinning - wow! it's like a different wheel. Tip for anyone with a grumbling & groaning wheel: check all the joints, tighten all the screws, oil all the moving parts.


So, what have I been up to with this spinning wheel? Spinning a weft yarn to weave another scarf on my table loom. After I finished the handspun, handwoven scarf at Christmas I was filled with the joy of weaving and thought "another!". I pulled a pretty multicoloured Noro yarn out of a stash box for weft, prepared the warp, warped the loom, but then I was stuck. I just couldn't find a weft to match it. I tried cotton, I tried wools in different colours, I tried bright colour and I tried neutrals.

It dawned on me that the weeks I spent thinking about colours and weave pattern for the handspun & handwoven scarf I'd just finished were not just idle thinking but very important creative planning and design time.

I stopped to think.

One thought I had was that I have many different fibres to spin and I have dyes and I can create the yarn I want. I looked at some different colours and found I had Shetland wool fibre dyed that I had dyed with madder last summer and the orange-red colour was just what I needed for this warp.

So, weaving had to wait while I spun a new weft yarn.



I had spun all the madder-dyed wool I had, but didn't even have one full bobbin. I know a bobbin holds about 100g of yarn which is the amount I have used in the past for weft in a scarf like this.


Spinning had to wait while I dyed more wool.


I managed a reasonably close match, one ball is slightly more red, the other slightly more orange so I'm weaving alternately with the two yarns in two shuttles.


The pattern I've chosen is my favourite 4-shaft undulating twill, as you can see in the header row bellow. I wove the header in high-contast thick white yarn so I can see what is happening in the warp easily. As the straight edge shows, I needed to adjust the tension on some of the warp. Towards the right of the photo you'll see the white weft yarn doesn't quite reach the straight edge, although it does on either side. Looking at this I know that means I have some tighter weft threads in that area. The weft yarn packs up closer in tight sections so the edge of the weaving dips towards the weaver, whilst in a loose section the warp threads would bulge away.


It's good to be fussy and slow when you start a piece of weaving and correct little errors like this, I have learnt that leaving anything I'm not entirely happy with at this stage is likely to mean that later on the problem has become magnified and I am unhappy with the cloth. When I was a new weaver I rushed the loom set up, but after various different disappointments I learnt that being relaxed about preparing the loom and fussing over little things would save heartache later.

I'm delighted with the colour of my madder weft. Maybe I've spun it a little thick, but we'll have to see how it is when it comes off the loom.

Just to finish up, these are some of the wefts I tried that didn't work! The first was a green knitting cotton, as I like green and orange and though the shiny cotton yarn might be a good contrast with the Noro wool. It was not good.

I also tried neutrals, a grey and a soft brown.

I much prefer the madder-dyed yarn!

Testing

My Mike Crompton Band Loom has a new tension block in place and I'm weaving a trial band, this is the new block -

It's longer, and a better fit in the width than the original -

With a warp on the loom and the tension wound up tight, there is minimal sideways twist now,

We are also testing a guide plate on the side of the block, to counteract the tendency it had to tip forwards under tension, if it works this will get replaced with a smarter piece of wood that will extend behind (as well as before) the peg.

I'm also testing out a new bobbin. This is based on a bobbin photographed in the Swedish book I mentioned before,"Weaving Bands" by Liv Trotzig and Astrid Axelsson. You can see a similar bobbin used in this video by skapaegna on YouTube. This prototype is made from a scrap piece of Sycamore wood, using a spoke shave. (We'd like a woodturning lathe, but have no where to put one at the moment!)

I was going down with a cold on Friday when I wound this warp, and although I tried to follow a warping diagram I managed to make it asymmetrical, the main error was that the pale strip on one side is a blue thread and on the other side lavender, I quite like the result.

Here's a couple more links for band weavers, Laverne on her backstrap loom has uses selvedge techniques that are useful for band weavers, see the videos in her Weavezine article, and Ruth McGregor has a video demonstrating much the same method on YouTube.

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I've also been enjoying testing out the latest addition to my collection of spinning wheels. This is a trusty, dependable little Ashford Traveller of which I am the third owner. My first spinning wheel, an Ashford Traditional, went to a new owner a couple of years ago, and I have often recalled wistfully how easy it was to use for anything I wanted to spin, how easy to carry and what an honest, simple design.

This wheel is a few years old, but has seen little use and is in beautiful condition. I particularly wanted a single treadle wheel and they are no longer available new from Ashford. I love the way I can carry it about with one hand, and it is the only wheel I have had which fits beautifully in the boot of my small Fiat car - it lies down flat behind the seats and I don't have to dis-assemble it at all, although it needs wrapping up and tucking in snug with a bit of packaging for safe travel. As I found that the Majacraft Suzie Alpaca was no lighter nor easy to carry than the Timbertops wheels, I'm particularly pleased to have a Traveller.

The cotton tape dangling from the tension knob holds the original Ashford threading hook. I think it would look prettier hanging from a new inkle band, maybe orange and red threads to match the rich colouring of the varnished Beech. wood?

Fine spinning - and Ashford Joy spinning wheel

Last year I attempted to spin very fine (lace weight) yarn. I had difficulty finding information about how to do this, and I wasn't very successful. My yarn was not so fine as I thought it should be and I because I'd got the idea that you needed special lace weight flyers and high speed whorls, I had difficulty controlling the spinning process and got too much twist into the yarn. A lovely soft, springy wool fibre turned into a rather hard feeling yarn.

Last night the Alsager Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers met for a spinning evening, and I managed to get there and had a lesson in fine spinning from my friend Janet who has had tuition from various experts including a lady spinning for knitting the traditional Sheltand lace shawls. (If you don't know what these look like, see the Heirloom Knitting web site.)

When I got home I had to have another go at this new technique before I went to bed! I used coloured Wensleydale fleece. Janet advised that Wensleydale is good to start with because of the long staple, it's a bit easier to handle than fine Shetland until you get used to spinning fine. We prepared the fibre by combing with a very fine tooth comb sold in pet shops for grooming cats (when I bought mine, I found I had to hunt around a bit to get one that was very fine toothed).
To spin, Janet demonstrated on an Ashford Joy wheel using a ratio of 8:1 (that's 8 turns of the spinning wheel and flyer per one treadle). She drafted half an inch of fibre per treadle, so that was giving 16 twists in the yarn per inch. When I got home I recalculated a bit rather than change my wheel set up, I had a 12:1 flyer, so drafted 3 inches fibre to two treadles.

The yarn I span at home (on the older of my Timbertops Leicester wheels) is not as fine as the thread Janet was spinning, but it is fine enough to show I have got the basic principle right and I intend to spin onto two bobbins and then ply this thread before going any finer.

There is a special little trick Janet taught me for drafting the fibre to spin very fine, in addition to taking it slow and steady, and watching the fibres carefully. This trick is that the hand that is nearest the orifice and which restrains the twist must let a little of the twist travel into the drafting fibres. Experienced spinners will know how just a little twist like this helps to feed new fibres into the yarn and prevents the fibre in one hand separating from the twisted yarn in the other!

As of last night, I'm a paid up member of the Alsager Guild. I haven't joined a guild like this before because of difficulty in getting to where any of them meet. But now I have re-arranged my working hours so I get Friday afternoon at home. This makes it easier to leave home at 6 p.m. to drive for an hour to get to a meeting. I actually spent as much time driving last night as I was at the Guild meeting - but it was well worthwhile.

You may remember I posted last month that I was going to go to the Guild meeting. I didn't get there. I had my tea early and had my stuff ready, then I got stuck because I just couldn't get my beautiful Timertops Leicester spinning wheel into the back of my small Fiat Punto. I had forgotton it only fits if the back seat is folded down and the wheel dismantled, and then extra packaging is needed to keep everything safe. It was a wet night and I didn't like having to put my wheel down on the wet driveway while I arranged the car, and I had managed to pull a muscle in my back carrying the heavy oak wheel from the house to the car (this involves a long path and a steep flight of 12 steps). I gave up after 20 minutes, it was getting late and I went back into the house for a cup of tea and a think.

I know that other people who have a special spinning wheel use a folding traveling wheel when they go out and about. I spent four weeks thinking about this, and checking out what was available. There's a really good comparison on the Woolery website which I found helpful. Then, on Monday, I decided if I was ever going to get such a wheel I should have one in time for the Friday Guild meeting. I phoned Fibrecrafts and asked if they had an Ashford Joy, placed my order and it arrived by carrier the next day. I had been a bit sceptical about the idea of wheels that fold up, but when my Joy arrived and I discovered for myself what a clever design it is all my worries went away. I took these photos for you, the first is that exciting moment of opening the box - and wondering how many different parts the wheel comes in, would it need much work to assemble?

The answer was, no, it was very simple to put together. I had to screw hooks into the flyer arm and put the scotch tension system together. These are things I'm familiar with from having owned an Ashford Traditional in the past. As well as a very good instruction book, other goodies were a "Learn to Spin" leaflet and a couple of copies of the Ashford magazine "the Wheel" with intresting articles on spinning, knitting simple jumpers, and Shibori weaving on their rigid heddle loom.
I put the wheel together in no time at all, and here it is stood next to an ordinary sized dining chair, to give you an idea of how compact it is (it's about 1/3rd of the size of my Timbertops wheels):
And here it is, in its bag and ready to go! The bag has a shoulder strap and it is very easy to carry.

It is heavier than some of the other folding wheels, this is because the wheel is extra thick and solid wood to make up for being small diameter. This gives it good momentum for spinning. It has four different ratios on one fixed whorl (no need to swop bits about, just shift the drive belt into a new groove). It runs very smoothly on ball bearing hubs, and is easy and pleasant to use.

I recommended it to a couple of new spinners at the Guild because: it is a versatile wheel with a good range of different speeds; it is easy to carry and will fold up small enough to tuck behind the sofa if you have limited space at home; it is very well made; I know from Janet's experience that you can spin everything from fancy yarns to lace weight on this wheel; a central flyer position is nice as it doesn't force you to spin in a particular way, you can easily draft with either hand and, on the double-treadle version you can use either the two treadles or just one of them, so you can swap your feet around and be comfortable.

Timbertops Leicester

Here is my best spinning wheel. It is approaching it's first birthday and I love it more than ever. It is a very special wheel, built by a master craftsman, and with the special features of double treadle and having the flyer on the right hand side.

It is a Timbertops Leicester wheel, made by James Williamson in the last batch of wheels he was making before retirement. After visiting James and Anne Williamson in September 2006 at their home near Leicester, England,I waited anxiously to discover if James was going to be able to find the wood & parts to make one extra wheel in his last batch. 

This is not a tidy room but it is handy having a fibre stash close to the spinning wheel. Here are a few close ups of the stash. here are some bags of wool, the bags are sewn form cotton sheeting and are ideal for storing wool as it can breathe. I attach labels to the bags with safety pins as some types of wool look very similar and can be muddled up.  The next picture shows a bagful of the most beautiful coloured Wensleydale fleece. I bought this from Sandy of Yorkshire Woolybacks after shearing last summer, and enjoyed washing it for myself. I intend to comb this wool and spin worsted yarn for weaving;

Pirn winding

I had prepared photos for a post about how I wind my pirns before I received this query from Kim:

"Dorothy, having just received one of these from my dear husband for Christmas, it would be wonderful if you could discuss using an end feed shuttle. Do I wind the pirn differently then I would a bobbin on a boat shuttle? How do I trouble shoot my weaving using the end feed shuttle?"

As a fairly new weaver I'm not the very best source of information, but I'm happy to share what I know - and then advise looking at any of the books listed at the end of this post.

For a description in words: you start need to start winding near the wide end of the pirn. I will cover the first couple of inches with one layer of thread, then I work backwards and forwards to build it up, and gradually move down the pirn, building up the yarn in a wedge shape. You don't want to fill all the space available in the shuttle or the yarn will jam, so your "yarn package" is going to need to fit comfortably within the shuttle.

Aside: I'd like to give you a diagram or a photo about how to fill the pirn with yarn, but I can't do that for the time being. Anyone reading my blog when I started out may remember I discovered I can't load pictures from my home computer. I still have to make a booking when the local library is open so I can use one of their computers to upload pictures.

It's important to wind tight, making a firm "yarn package", so the yarn only only unwinds when it is pulled from the shuttle, and so it pulls out evenly. When you get close to the tip of the pirn it is even more important that the layers are built up firm and even, so there is no danger of the yarn slipping of the end of the pirn(!). I use wooden pirns that came with my shuttles, and have not had problems with the yarn slipping, I don't know if the plastic pirns behave differently?

Although I've used medium to fine weight yarns with my shuttles without problems, they aren't suited to all yarns. Mine will not take thick yarns and I think most fancy yarns would catch in the tensioner - I've got a Schacht boat shuttle and various rug shuttles (the ski type is my favourite) for other types of yarn.

From my recent experience, the tension needs tightening if the yarn pulls out without effort. If you just pick up the shuttle and pull on the yarn, you should feel a resistence and it should slow and stop as you stop pulling. Watch as you weave a header, when it's right you should easily feel in total control of the way the weft lies through the warp.

I always have to remember a little rhyme my Dad taught me when adjusting the screw "right is tight, left is loose" (right being clockwise).

I started winding pirns with a quill spindle attatchment for my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. When I sold that wheel, I had to come up with a homemade adaptation for my new wheel, a 2nd hand Timbertops Leicester. I used a piece of dowel which I shaped with a knife to make it fit the orifice of the spinning wheel and my pirns (which are of two different sizes). It clips in place with a little spring made from a paper clip, as you can just about see on the right of the first photo.








The second photo shows a pirn in place for winding, and although there is not much yarn wound you can see how I have avoided the very top of the pirn and just started to build up an even yarn package with a bulge at the top tailing off down the pirn. Peggy Ostercamp (see below) advises that a much steeper angle on the yarn is best for good tension.







The third and last photo shows off my beautiful spinning wheel.
















What I really like about using the spinning wheel for winding pirns is that I have both hands free, making it easy to guide the thread. It is also very easy to control the speed the pirn is turning, so I feel in good control of the process.

The best books I have found for instructions for using end feed shuttles are:
Peggy Ostercamp, Weaving and Drafting Your Own Cloth (several pages of good information & diagrams) (buy from Peggy direct, or all good weaving suppliers).
Rachel Brown, The Weaving Spinning and Dyeing Book, (available from Fibrecrafts in UK, see below, also Amazon in UK and US).
and
Allen A Fannin, Handloom Weaving Technology (all editions very useful, the latest is available from amazon.com in the U.S, Fibrecrafts in the UK).

Natural dyeing - how I got started.

Long before I knew about spinning wool, or that people wove cloth on handlooms, I was in a book shop and found a book called "The Craft of Natural Dyeing", by Jenny Dean, and I was mesmerised by the lovely colourful pictures. This was something I wanted to try. My mother is a botanist and I grew up with endless curiosity for and love of plants.

I think that was in 2001, as I find that is the date of the edition I have. It seems like longer ago than that. For ages I had this book, I kept looking at the pictures, reading the strange words, and got no further than feeling a bit puzzled. I couldn't understand the book. It was full of terms I didn't know, like "mordant" and "dyestuff" and I had to keep turning back and forward because the information was not well ordered for someone as ignorant as me.

In 2001, I was doing other things. Working as a company lawyer full-time while starting a Post Graduate Diploma in Law and learning to read legal case records (written in another strange language!). So, the book went on the shelf, and although I looked at the pictures from time to time and wondered, that's as far as I got.

In 2004, I had finished my legal studies, with a couple of good qualifications, was unemployed, working hard at mentally "keeping my chin above water", and then, at the Manifold Country Show, I met some ladies from the North Staffordshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. They had spinning wheels and were using them to turn fluffy sheeps' wool into yarn. This was in itself amazing to me. But, what is more, they had a small display that included a child's yellow jumper and I discovered it was yellow because the wool had been dyed with onion skin. My first question was "how long does it take to spin enough wool to knit a jumper?" and after some careful thought the lady I asked said about a fortnight. So that was it, I went home, googled "spinning wheels" in the UK, found Chris' Spindizzy site, then the Loom Exchange, saw an advert for an "Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel", looked up the Ashford web site and found it quite respectable, rang the phone number and.... on the next day, my birthday, went and bought my first spinning wheel.

O.K., so now I had a book on dyeing, a spinning wheel, and with it... not much idea of what to do next.

With the wheel came a pair of handcarders and a small bag of washed Ryeland fleece. On the back of the carders was a sticker saying "Wingham Woolworks" and a phone number. On the Monday morning, I rang the phone number. I visited the shop the next weekend, and went back at the end of the following week for a spinning lesson. This was the best thing that could have happened to me. I found myself a good teacher, learnt to spin, bought supplies of superwash merino wool (suitable for spinning and dyeing) and met a couple of other spinners who were there to learn fancy yarn techniques.

One of these spinners was Janet from the Alsager Guild and I was invited along to meet the Guild, and to join in a day course in natural dyeing. Yippee! at last... I was going to learn what that book was going on about!

More to follow - with pictures next time...!

(No Leigh, I haven't upgraded, yet, I can get to the library on Thursday evening or Saturday morning....)