last bits of analysis and preparation for spinning
(By the time this is going up, it's not Wednesday anymore. Sorry :/)
This is the last experiment planning post, I promise! I'll condense everything into something a bit more accessible at some point in the future, but for now, we're taking things one step at a time.
I just got the wool and drop spindle in the mail. It's a relatively heavy spindle, and the wool has a long-ish staple length. I broke it into 6 pieces; the intention is that each one will contain all the wool for one trial. As I write that, I realize that this strategy is probably not the most effective, but I think it'll be okay.
I went ahead and dyed a skein of wool into different variegated colours, so that I'd be able to easily distinguish my samples (this way, I can spin the full sample at the same time, and the colours will delineate different sections). They each have a dyed tip and a bare tip, so that I can correctly line everything up. I'd like to note that the plastic wrap definitely behaves better when boiled as opposed to microwaved.
While those were drying, I started spinning an extra skein of wool, since I've never worked with this drop spindle or fibre. I am happy to report that the wool definitely feels stronger than the polyfill did (it has a longer staple length, is coarser, etc.), which is a huge relief after all of the times the polyfill yarn epically failed at holding up any sort of weight. It drafts really smoothly, which I think will allow me to do some more consistent pre-drafting for the silvers. As a result, I might be able to get more samples out of the fibre, at a more consistent rate.
I'm also not quite sure what property allows this, but the twist just felt more elastic, almost -- like the ply back was more excited to occur. Perhaps that is simply the bounciness of wool (although I think the polyfill had a tighter crimp, so that's not a particularly convincing argument). The fibre also strips really nicely. All said, I think it should hold up to the experimental planning decisions I've made up to this point. There is a possibility that I'll decide to go single-strand instead of double-strand for the tension tests -- that's definitely something I need to figure out once everything's in place, and isn't something I can completely effectively plan for.
Finally, I set up a Lazy Kate system. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's basically a holder for yarn while you are plying. (That might not help if you're not a spinner.) Mine is kind of janky, and I think I might end up using skewers instead for more stability, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
In other news, I've decided against editing together a video for the water weight pre-testing testing. I don't think the visuals are necessary, and quite frankly, most of the footage is just me filling buckets up with water and then sighing heavily when it doesn't work. There's not a lot of visual change, so I don't think that it's at all worth it. I will go back in and add some photos to either the original blog post or the Instagram page instead, in case it is helpful.
With all that out of the way, we can finally get into the experiment proper.
(At some point.)
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