rough experimental outline

procedural summary

photo credit: KnitPicks

Given that I don't yet have access to materials (current ETA is ~1 week), I can't really be sure about anything, especially not exact values. Nonetheless, here's a brief overview of my current plans, and how I came to them.

Be warned -- this might not all be super understandable to the uninitiated (with regards to fiber arts). I'm largely writing this to explain why I made the decisions I did, and the reality is that I am someone who overthinks things a lot. There's not room in anyone's life for a full explanation of every single thing I considered. Feel free to demand explanations if necessary.

(Also, this is a summary of where I'm at right now, not a lab-report-in-progress.)

variables

As of right now, I think it's probably most realistic just to spin the yarn -- there's probably not time for fabric swatches, especially given that I don't have a background in spinning or weaving (my knitting and crochet background isn't necessarily helpful in either case).

There are so, so, so many different ways to approach handspun tensile strength, honestly -- and that's already neglecting the fact that tensile strenght isn't always actually the goal. I could look at fiber preparation -- carded vs. combed, pre-drafted vs. not, spun from the fold vs. straight, roving vs. rolag vs. silver vs. pencil. I could compare drafting styles -- worsted vs. woolen, long vs. short, back vs. front. Specifically within the realm of spindling, what about drop vs. supported, or even using park-and-draft?

Like I said: there are a heck-ton of ways to come at this problem.

The issue I have with most of the ones I just outlined is that those are pretty qualitative things -- and as a result, they're incredibly difficult to measure. How can I measure the degree to which something is spun with a worsted vs. woolen preparation? Maybe if I prepared the fibers by hand, and counted the number of times I carded or combed, a general trend might be discovered. But that is, quite frankly... not realistic. The materials would be expensive, and that's not even beginnin to consider my own lack of expertise. Would it be a fun summer project? Sure. A capstone physics project, however? No.

As a result, I've decided that my experiment will focus on twist and plying (additional boon: this is supposed to appeal to a wide audience, and the word 'tortuosity' is an unparalleled opportunity for click-bait). I will look at:

• tortuosity

• number of plies

• style of plying

That might be a little too much, in hindsight, and maybe I am, once again, overcompensating for the fact that I'm a middle-child-burned-out-gifted-kid-with-imposter-syndrome (I've used my crafty expertise to boost my marks on... a lot of projects. Biology, anthropology, math, history -- you name it, I've probably exploited textiles).

procedure

I have already expounded my lack of experience in hand-spinning, but I guess I'll say it again here: I really have no idea what I'm doing. Which, of course, means that any procedural decisions I make now are extremely liable to change in the future. Currently, however, here is what I'm thinking:

1. strip roving into equally sized pieces; I don't have a scale to measure this, so we are going to have to depend on my eyeballing skills, which is not ideal... but it's also all I currently have

   1. I would really love to find a better way of measuring this, so that I can come back this experiment and spin more samples if need be (??)

2. pre-draft into, again, equally sized pieces

3. strip into variable number of pieces, depending on number of plies (i.e. 2 for 2-ply, 3 for 3-ply, etc.)

4. spin, checking the wraps-per-inch and tortuosity of ply-back yarn, using both S- and Z-twist methods

5. ply, using traditional (2, 3, and 4-ply), navajo (3-ply -- possibly try different lengths of chain)), and cabled (4-ply) methods

6. set all yarns together in warm water bath

7. stretch one piece of yarn across bars, and place a bucket on the strand

8. pour water into bucket in 100 mL (?? need to test this on commercial yarn first) increments, until the yarn snaps

9. record values and compare

10. repeat steps 1-9, stripping roving into larger pieces

To be clear, at the end of this, we should end up with the following samples of yarn, in both a thicker and thinner variation, and high- and low-twist variation:

• single

• 2-ply

• 3-ply

  • traditional

  • navajo

• 4-ply

  • traditional

  • cabled

This means that during fiber preparation, we need to make:

• 24 pieces of roving

• 24 pieces of pre-drafted fibers

Then, we are going to strip these into:

• 4 singles (no stripping)

• 4 2-ply

• 8 3-ply

• 8 4-ply

I will be spinning 100% peruvian highland wool for all my samples, on a 3 oz. top-whorl drop spindle. As a lead, I will be using 100% mercerized cotton thread in a size 10 weight.

I will make a note of it if any modifications are made to this plan -- and I'm nearly 100% certain that there will be adjustments as I go along -- but for now, I think that's it!