CROOKED CONE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

Well, it’s not the cone that is crooked;  it’s the winding. 

When I got to this point, I could no longer turn the handle.  Something was jammed.  I am not a mechanic.  Still, I took the cone off the winder, turned the winder upside down in my hand.  I looked through the tiny opening and it seemed to unmechanical Peg that there were bits of threads caught in the gear mechanism.  What to do?

Could I take it apart to get at the gears?  I saw 4 screws on the bottom. I removed them and proceeded to pull the bottom of the winder away from the top.  But it wouldn’t come apart.  Was there something else I could do? 

I’d had this (relatively) inexpensive winder for close to 10 years.  I knew I wouldn’t feel badly about buying a new one.  But I was still determined to try to get it back into working order.

I could not find another way to separate them into the two pieces.  But, there was enough of an opening that I could clearly see the threads caught in the gears, but not enough of an opening for even one finger to slip through.

I tried a long beading tweezers, but even that was too wide.  So I took a crochet hook and poked around until a thread came to where I could grab it either with my fingers or tweezers.  Then I pulled it out of the gear.  I did this any number of times, pulling out not only threads but bits of dust ball sort of things.  Finally, the gear mechanism seemed to be clean of any garbage.

I put a fresh cone on, attached the thread, took the handle in my fingers and turned.  It turned freely.  It wound out correctly.  I am so proud of myself!

“Crooked Cone” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 30, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WINDING 120/2 DYED SILK ONTO CONES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

DONE WITH SLEYING THE REED

I have finished sleying the reed.  I found another doubled warp end.  That was a real surprise, since this is the second time I sleyed this part of the warp.  Clearly didn’t catch it the first time.  So the front beam is back on and I am ready to get to work I need to do before attaching the warp to the front rod.

WINDING SKEINS ONTO CONES

Now it’s time for a change of pace and turning to winding the 120/2 skeins I dyed earlier onto cones.  I approach this with fear and trepidation.  After setting up the apparatus, I carefully put the warp onto the skein winder, making sure that the knots on the ties all faced the same direction.  I found the two ends, separated them and tied bits of white yarn to the ends of both so that they could be easily found.  I removed the skein ties.  Then I determined which of the two ends would wind off the top.  I got the right end attached to the cone winder and started winding, gleeful at how good I have gotten in dealing with these silk skeins.

THEN AN END BROKE

Sigh.  Of course it got buried somewhere in the midst of the skein.  It would be easier to find a lost end on a spinning wheel than to find this end. 

I tied a couple of ties around the skein, removed it and turned it inside out.  The last time I did this I had not put the ties in.  I decided that not putting a couple of ties on was quite foolish.  Anyway, I had to do turn the skein inside out because that would make it possible to unwind from the other end with it working across the top of the skein instead of the underside. I’m back winding the cone again. 

And I am very nervous.

I am going to be very careful, because if this end breaks I am in serious, serious trouble.

And no, I do not know why the first end broke.  In the process of unwinding I have seen one knot.  I hope this yarn is not tender and easily breakable……….

Related Posts:  
Winding Commercial Silk Skeins onto Cones
More on Winding Fine Silk onto Cones

“Winding 120/2 Dyed Silk onto Cones”  was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 21, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WINDING COMMERCIAL SILK SKEINS ONTO CONES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

For a long time I thought that the direction the skein unwound from the skein winder made a difference.  Was I ever wrong!

COMMERCIAL SKEINS VERSUS MY SKEINS

I also assumed that commercial producers wound skeins the same way I did.  I wind skeins one section at a time.  After winding a section of say 200 yards, I loop a contrasting yarn around it.  Then I wind another section and, making a figure-of-eight, I loop the contrast yarn around it. And I continue in this fashion until the skein is complete.  As a result, the beginning of the skein is at one side of the skein;  the end of it is at the other side of the skein.

The commercial producers of silk yarn I deal with* do not wind skeins in this way.  They make skeins by winding the yarn back and forth across the width of the skein.  As a result, the beginning of the skein is at the bottom of the skein;  and the end of the skein is at the top. 

WHICH END TO START WITH?

I am now sure that a main key to smooth unwinding of commercial silk yarns is to make sure I start with the right end.  The right end is the one that unwinds from the top of the skein as it sits on top of the skein winder.  The wrong end is the one that, as I pull on it, comes from the underside of the skein.

So, what I did after I had put the skein on the skein winder was to cut the skein at the knot where the beginning and the end were joined together with a knot, and then to attach a small bit of contrast color yarn to each end.  Then I tried to unwind with one of the ends.  It was difficult to get it started because it kind of interweaved with the rest of the warp ends.  But by the time I had unwound it one whole round, it was clear that this yarn was going to be drawing from the underside.  That was not going to work.

I took the other end and did the same thing.  It too was difficult going for the first round, but then it became clear it was going to unwind from the top of the skein.  So that is the end I chose to use.  And that is the end that worked.

Except……

A YARN BREAKS

As I was winding the first cone, an end very nicely broke.  Thank you.  I could not find it anywhere in the skein.  Thank you again.  Sigh.

If I started with the other end, it was going to unwind from the bottom of the skein.  As I full well knew, doing that would give me nothing but grief.

The solution?  Remove the skein from the winder.  Flip it inside out so that the inside of the skein is now on the outside.  Voila!  the other end unwound from the top.

I would probably advise anyone removing and flipping the skein to make a few figure-of-eights around the skein before removing and flipping.  This will make sure that the skein is as it should be.  Brazen soul that I can be, I did not do this.  It worked.  Thank you.

ONE MORE TRICK

The only other trick that I need to remember when I deal with these skeins is to put the tension block between the skein winder and the cone winder.  Doing that keeps the tension even as it enters the cone winder with less likelihood of incorrect cone winding. Doing that also means I do not have to watch the yarn as it leaves the skein winder.  That leaves me free to focus on the yarn as it goes around the cone, which means that I catch immediately any slipping of the yarn and can easily make the necessary correction.

THE NECESSITY FOR PATIENCE

It is all about patience in getting started.  Patience is not one of my strong suits!

Related Posts: 
Silk Yarns 
Coning the Warp Yarn
Tension Box: Another Good Use
More on Winding Fine Silk onto Cones
Winding the Dyed Silk onto Cones

*My silk yarns come from Treenway Silks.  I cannot speak for skeined silk yarns that come from other sources.

 

“Winding Commercial Silk Skeins onto Cones” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 5, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

CONES OF BROWN SILK WARP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

Three of them.

I decided to try winding from the other end.  Magic. 

Perhaps not.  This has happened before.  So this time, I tried to watch the silk as it came off the skein.  Hard to do as I have to keep my eyes glued to the cone to make sure the yarn doesn’t slip off the top or the bottom.  What I saw when I grabbed glances of the skein was that the yarn was unwinding back and forth across the top of the skein.  This explains the advice I once received to unwind from the top of the skein.

This advice had made no sense to me.  When I wind a skein of yarn myself, I wind, say, 100 rounds, then put three or four ties on.  I wind another 100 rounds, and twist the ties and encircle them to encompass the next group of yarns.  And so on.  The result is that when I make balls or cones from my skein, the yarn winds off the skein from one edge to the other……….gradually.   Not back and forth across the top.  And it makes no difference which end I start with.

Clearly the method of making these silk skeins is quite different.  The winder simply goes back and forth and back and forth and then the ties are put on.

With this kind of skein it truly does make a difference which end I start with.  If I start with the end that comes from underneath, I am in deep trouble.  If I start with the end that comes from the top, all is well.

At least, these are my thoughts right now!

So, why three skeins?  Because I plan on using a paddle and winding my warp three ends at a time.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE

Yes, the background color of the photo is a putrid gymnasium green.  That is because I had to do some serious color manipulating to turn what the camera intrpreted as red, on all 15 photos I took, to the brown it really is.  Here is the original image (and this is the least red of the images):

There is, of course, a lot of red in this yarn.  Well, the camera lens apparently fell in love with the red and didn’t pay any attention to the other colors in the yarn that turned the color into brown. No matter what settings are tried on the camera itself.  Sigh.

Related Post:   Coning the Warp Yarn

"Cones of Brown Silk Warp” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 19, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

CONING THE WARP YARN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Is there such a word as “coning?”  Spell checker seems to think it’s a word…….  Anyway, here is the brown skein being coned. Also visible are some of my other tools. 

On the bottom shelf, my electric cone winder and my hand cone winder. 

On the middle shelf, my ball winder (in a clear pastic bag) and gloves that I sometimes wear when winding yarn to protect my fingers.

On the top shelf, my tension box, now facing a different direction so that the yarn coming from the skein winder does not pop off the pegs. 

The winding is not going  without some difficulties.  This next photo shows more clearly just what the difficulties are.

Nevertheless, the difficulties here are not the horrendous ones I have experienced in the past. That means I am not tearing out my hair over it.  Just being persistent.

And I do now know it is definitely the dyeing process that is the cause of the problems. 

Related Post:   That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn

"Coning the Warp Yarn” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 18, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

TENSION BOX: ANOTHER GOOD USE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I discovered that the tension box is useful not only for winding cones, but also for making skeins.  Making skeins for dyeing the weft yarns is what I have now started to do.

The yarn comes up from the rack in the lower right hand corner.  It is emerging through the metal eye there.  It then travels up to the tension box which I have set up on a snack table.  It goes through the metal eye and then around the pegs.  From there it goes to the yarn counter, which is sitting on the red book.   The black box is the counter.  The yarn is wound 3 times around the wheel of the counter so that there is enough grip for the counter to be accurate.  There is a metal eyelet it goes through first.  Then on the other side of the counter is another metal eye.  It goes through that and then over to the skein winder on the upper right.

What the tension box does here is to keep the yarn from looping and flapping around before it enters the yarn counter.  When the yarn loops around too badly, it will slip off the wheel of the counter and gets caught in the gear mechanism at the back.  When it happened this last time,  I had to cut the yarn and join a new end to it.  That is when I thought of the tension box………..

Related Posts: 
More on Winding Fine Silk Onto Cones
Skeining Photos

"Tension Box: Another Good Use” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 5, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

MORE ON WINDING FINE SILK ONTO CONES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

For the first cone I wound, I had the tension box level with the cone. I did the same thing when I started to wind the second cone. But then I decided to try winding with the cone below the tension box.  I did this primarily because I was having a bit of trouble with the yarn slipping off the pegs.

Moving the cone winder down worked well except for one problem.  When the cone is down on the middle shelf, I am looking at it from above.   As a result, I have trouble watching how the yarn is winding on.  I especially have trouble seeing what is happening at the bottom.  Here is a close-up that showed what actually happened.

The yarn slipped from time to time to the bottom of the cone.  I don’t think this will seriously affect my winding off from this cone to make skeins.  The real problem is that when this happens, the yarn can actually slip off the cone itself and get caught in the workings of the cone winder.  Looking carefully at the bottom right of the cone shows one thread close to doing that.

Next time I might try reversing the positions of the two.  But then I would have to change the way the tension box stands so that the yarn does not come off the guide rods.

Related Post:     I Might Try the Goko Again

"More on Winding Fine Silk onto Cones” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 28, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

I MIGHT TRY THE GOKO AGAIN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

Why?   Because this second skein is winding off so easily. 

So easily that it tends to loop around.  I solved that by putting a tension box* between the skein and the cone and then running the yarn through it.  Any whipping and looping that happens will happen before the yarn enters and tension box, not after.

The only thing I have to continue to watch with an eagle eye is the yarn as it winds onto the cone.  The yarn can get caught and start winding either underneath or above the wound part of the cone. With the tension controlled, this rarely happens.  And catching it immediately when it does happens makes it quick and easy to fix.

Here is a close up of the skein itself as it looks on the skeinwinder (viewed from the top). 

It looks exactly like a skein should look.   Smooth.  Spread across the whole width of the skein winder.  Flat.  And the yarn feeds back and forth from across the top of the skein.

Now I finally know exactly what the skein should look like when it is stretched out.  I also know I can try each end to see which end feeds from the top.  Knowing these two things gives me the courage to try the Goko again.  For if that skein unwinds in the same manner as the current skein unwinding, the Goko will work exactly as it ought to, turning free an easy as it lets the yarn unwind. 

With the LeClerc, because it is so heavy, I have to turn the winder as well as the cone winder in order for the yarn to feed off.  With the super-light Goko, the pull from the cone winder is all that is needed to cause the yarn to feed off of it.

*This particular tension box is sold at Purrington Looms.

"I Might Try the Goko Again” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 26, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

FIRST 60/2 SILK SKEIN CONED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

I wasn’t sure I could get one whole skein onto a cone;  I’d never tried that before.  But it worked.  Just took a while……….

Only 3 knots in the entire cone.  Not bad.

From these cones I will make skeins for dyeing.

Why not make the skeins directly from the Treenway skeins? I could put the Treenway skein on my Goko* and wind from it onto my LeClerc skein winder.

I had tried that on an earlier project.  But it was not totally successfully, as you can see if you read this post.  Indeed, I got frustrated enough that I gave up and made cones instead which I then wound into skeins.

*Go here and scroll down the page to see Schacht’s Goko skein winder. To be clear, I want to say that the problem is NOT with the Goko.  The Goko is a good piece of equipment.  I just have to learn more about handling 60/2 silk!

Related Post:  Winding Weft Yarn for Dyeing Continues

"First 60/2 Silk Skein Coned” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

 

 

FOLLOW-UP TO A BAD SILK SKEIN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I decided to start with one of the loose-hanging ends.  It wound onto the cone quite smoothly, that is until it stopped because it came to another cut in the yarn.  What I did see, however, is that those loose ends hanging down to the floor in the picture were only a few of the cut ends in the skein.  Unwinding revealed more and more that had been buried in the skein.

I tried another loose end.  This one did not go so well.  So I cut it and decided to go for the other end, the end with the gold 5/2 pearl cotton attached to it.

That wound off just as smoothly as its mate, which I had wound first, did.  And it used up quite a bit of the skein.

Heartened by my success, I took another loose end.  It wound on fine until it came to the end.  There were three more loose ends that I successfully wound on.

And so the skein was unwound. With unexpected ease. All of it on the cone.  With only 10 knots at the most.

Now to make sample skeins for dyeing.

Related Post:  A Bad Silk Skein

“Follow-up to a Bad Silk Skein“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 7, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

A BAD SILK SKEIN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I was running out of the 2/20 silk on a cone.  Since I have more dye sampling to do, I got out one of my skeins to wind another cone.  I discovered, much to my horror, that the skein contained many cut threads.

Here is what happened when I put the yarn on the skein winder and started winding a cone. 

No, this is not a bad skein from Treenway Silks.  It is a skein from Treenway but the fault is entirely mine.

A year or two ago, I had received a package of silk from Treenway.  They are very frugal with their packaging and so package the skeins very tightly.  I was careless.  As I cut the package open, I cut into the skein.

I did not throw the skein out.  I figured it was still usable.  On the other hand, I was very slow to wind a cone of it.  So slow that I had forgotten all about it.

Before I started winding, I undid the ties and found the beginning and end of the skein.  I started winding from one of those.  The winding went well until the yarn stopped coming.  I had reached a broken end. 

If you look carefully at the top of the skein in the photo, you can see a heavier golden yellow piece of yarn hanging down from the skein.  This is 5/2 pearl cotton which I tied to the opposite end.  Doing this would keep me from losing it as I wound from the first end.  That 5/2 pearl cotton attached to the end would be my safety net—a place to start again.  I always do this, because I never know what problems are going to happen.

Now I do not know whether to proceed with that end or to take one of those many loose broken ends you see hanging down to the floor.  I know those loose ends will not unwind smoothly.  I will probably have to make a fair number  of knots.  But the good news is that I am not dyeing this yarn for weaving, only for sampling, so knots don’t matter.

Related Post:   
Loose End
Disappointment
That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn

“A Bad Silk Skein“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 6, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

YARNS AND COLORS FOR GREEN CRACKLE PROJECT

Also a note at the end on photography for those interested in such matters
Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Taking a break from looking at the computer screen, I checked to see if I needed to order any yarn.  It turns out that I have plenty of 60/2 silk, which is for both the warp and the pattern weft.  But I seem to have no more 120/2 silk, which is for the binder weft.


By the way, for the curious, the piece of yellow at the bottom left corner is the first piece I wove—a yellow wool and mohair afghan which I keep draped over my computer chair.

120/2 silk is very fine, but fortunately Treenway Silks offers it on cones as well as skeins. That means that I will not have to wind cones from skeins before I wind smaller skeins for the dye baths. So my order is in.
 

I do not have enough of the silk tram I ordered from Habu.  I plan on using this for some, but not all, of the pattern wefts.  A phone call will be in order tomorrow.

And I have started work on the dye formulas I want to sample.  They are mostly some different variations of yellow-green.  I will be mixing Lanaset/Sabraset dyes and will use SAB Sun Yellow,  SAB Mustard Yellow, SAB Turquoise and SAB Royal Blue in various proportions. 

After I finish the yellow-green sampling, I will take the colors I like and want to use and add varying degrees of red-violet to them.  Red-violet is the complement of lemon yellow, so I can use a bit of it to tone down the various lemon-yellows.  Using a bit more of the red-violet should give me some possible browns to use.
 
There is no red-violet in SAB dyes so I am using a formula I have used in another sampling and like.  It  uses SAB Scarlet, SAB Violet, and Washfast Acid Magenta in various proportions.

Then I will do the same thing with violet.  There is a SAB Violet but I don’t like it alone.  So I will combine it with SAB Royal Blue an Washfast Acid Magenta, which will give it a more brilliant character.

Also on the sampling to-do list is using black to create varying degrees of grays.  Then I plan to combine one or more of these grays with any browns I find from earlier trials that I like.  I will see what happens.

These formulas are now made up only in terms of percentages, not in terms of actual amount of dye.  I need to wind and weigh the skeins to determine the actual amount of each dye stock solution.

I will be winding small skeins of 20/2 silk.  I use 20/2 silk instead of 60/2 because it is much heavier and so I do not have to make very larger skeins for the dye samplings.

It looks like I will be starting with about 25 skeins.  I will do more if I see some more ideas I want to try as a result of this batch of dyeing.  So my next steps are:

1. Wind 10-yard skeins of 20/2 silk.
2. Weigh the skeins
3. Rewrite the dye stock formulas in terms of actual amounts of dye needed.

So now it is time for some actual physical labor!  At least I have quite a bit of 20/2 already wound on a cone so, at least for now, I do not have to wind another skein of it onto a cone.

Photography Note:  I have a new camera which lets me take far better pictures, both inside and outside, than my old one.  But this photo reveals the difficulty that still exists of getting colors right.  The major issue was caused, I think, by the brightness of the LED screen versus the comparative dimness of the rest of the room.  The result is that the overall colors are just a tad too dark, except for the computer screen.

Because I was most concerned with the colors on the computer screen, I selected it, moved it to its own layer and played with it.  The result is better, except that now the blue borders that Windows uses for its various toolbars are definitely not blue.

I could have selected the entire computer screen, reversed the selection so that everything else was selected instead and then lightened that a tad.  But I did not think about that because only what was on the computer screen concerned me.

There are other issues as well.

• The round yellow light on my phone to the right of the computer.  The light is really red…………   Sigh……….
• The glare of the blue button at the bottom of the screen.

Finally I just have a ton left to learn on using this camera.  I doubt that I shall learn it all in this lifetime!

Related Posts:  
Dyeing Records
Dye Stock Solutions

“Yarns and Colors for Green Crackle Project” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 10, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

PIRNS AND BOBBINS WOUND

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Even with knots, silk yarn winds very smoothly from well-wound cones onto bobbins and pirns. The silk yarn would not have wound on to the pirns and bobbins at all well had I tried to wind them directly from the skeins. Taking the time to wind onto cones first definitely pays off.

To the right is a photo of the tensioner I use to help me wind pirns. It was made by John Stegmuller who designed something he calls the olympic pirn winder. This last was reviewed on Episode 18 of Weave Cast. Go here to listen to it.

I have used this tensioner for around five years now and am really happy with it.

The yarn, threaded on a big needle, enters the left side of the tensioner. It goes around the first pink thing, then in between the two black discs and around to the next pink thing and out onto the right side. The space between the discs can be adjusted by turning the wing nut at the top. The amount of space determines the tension on the yarn.

I hold the whole tool in my right hand and move it back and forth, just as I would if I were holding the yarn between my fingers. This saves burning of my fingers.

More important, this tool puts a lot more tension on the yarn than I can put by holding it between my fingers. That greater tension results in a pirn that is smoothly and firmly wound. Those are requirements for yarn wound onto pirns.

Related Post: Pirn Winding

“Pirns and Bobbins Wound” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 4, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

LOOSE END

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The silk tram unwound quite nicely onto cones, thank you. But four of the six silk bombyx skeins gave me nothing but grief. This photo shows what happened with every one of those four skeins.

Yes, I am giving it center stage because I am…….well, I don’t know what I am! At least the long-awaited tripod arrived, and does it ever make a difference. That blankety-blankety-blank loose end shows up so nice and clearly on the photo……..

I have had to unskein these by slowly turning the winder, stopping, when the yarn catches, undoing the catch, turning the winder some more, and so on. The catch sometimes happens with every half turn, sometimes every turn. When enough loose yarn accumulates on the floor I then wind that onto the cone. And begin again. This is slow work.

I have to be very careful to make sure that this loose end, no matter how large it grows, stays properly aligned and doesn't slip over the end of the skein winder. I’ve learned that the hard way. On three of the skeins I ended up with an absolute mess as a result of not paying attention. I had to cut and knot. More than once. Those skeins are going to be miserable to weave with. But weave with them I will.

Related Post:
Silk Tram
Winding the Dyed Silk onto Cones
Silk Organzine Yarn Versus Bombyx Silk Yarn

“Loose End” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on April 30, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WINDING THE SILK TRAM

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I put the silk tram on the skein winder. And this is what it looked like. I had snapped the skein and snapped the skein. Look at all those loose and flyaway ends! Do you think I was just a bit nervous? You better believe it!

I had checked and double-checked that the yarn was coming through the ties properly. I did this because one of my thoughts has been that I do not get all the yarns on correctly. And because this yarn is so flyaway, I really had to work at examining carefully the yarn at each tie.

Then I tied the half of the skein tightly with red yarn that was going to come of the skein winder second. The idea was to keep the yarns from the first half tangling with the yarns of the second. As I was doing this I did discover loops at two of the ties. As I checked these out I realized that they needed to be corrected so that those yarns would go on the winder correctly.

So what happened? Here is a photo of both the skeins wound onto cones. The skeins wound off almost perfectly! Doesn’t the yarn look shiny, shiny?! Wouldn’t it be glorious for the weft for an entire piece?!

Indeed, with the second one a slight problem occurred that caused me to remove the ties around the second half. Still, there was only one place that I had to tie a knot and that was because there was a cut end somewhere in the middle of the skein. I had seen that when I was putting the skein on the winder but have no idea how that happened.

For all my worry about this silk tram, it wound on the cones just fine. What a relief.

Related Post:
Silk Tram
Winding the Dyed Silk Onto Cones
Winding Cones: Have I Found the Secret?
Silk Yarns

“Winding the Silk Tram” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on April 29, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WINDING THE DYED SILK ONTO CONES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I didn’t think it was going to go well, despite what I had thought earlier. 

SHRUNKEN SKEIN

First of all, the dyeing process had caused the yarn to shrink enough so that the skein became too small to fit my Goko—my unwinder of choice for fine silk.

But the skein fit fine on the LeClerc skein winder. However, unlike the Goko, when I unskein from the LeClerc, I have to turn it with the handle at the same time I turn the handle on the cone winder.  The LeClerc is just too heavy for the cone winder to pull it around.  The Goko, on the other hand, is very light.

THREADS DON’T ALIGN

Despite the flatness of the skein and the softness of the yarn, the threads did not align the way they do with my hand-made skeins.  And it was clear that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I tightened the LeClerc as tight as I could get it.  But part of the skein was still a bit looser than the rest. Not a good sign.

FINDING THE OUTSIDE END

Then I looked for the place that the ends were tied together.  I cut them apart and attached a length of 20/2 pearl cotton to each.  I do this primarily so that the end I am not using to wind from does not get lost in the event that the yarn I am winding breaks and I cannot find the end. Then I can always begin with the end of the skein.

I checked to see where the ends came from.  Both ends appeared to be on the inside of the skein.  That is how I put the skein on the winder.  But I know that each end has to come from the opposite side of the skein.  Sure enough, I found that end and worked my way with it to the front of the skein.   I pulled at it for a few rounds and it very nicely came off across the top of the skein.

This is something I had never bothered doing.  In fact, I had never even thought about it until Laura mentioned that it was important to use the end that ran across the top of the skein.  But I’ve decided that this is pretty significant.

UNWINDING BEGINS

I undid the figure-of-eight ties and gently started to unwind the yarn.  It did just fine.  I put in through the yardage counter and attached it to the cone in the cone winder and got to work.  Whoppee!   The thing winds!

Well, maybe not perfectly.  Because the skein is not perfectly taut throughout, loose ends crop up.  In the photo you can see a couple of loops that had just come up and caught onto the unwinding yarn (the black arrow points to the unwinding yarn).  But all I had to do was grab that end and jerk it gently away from the skein and all was well again.

This happens from time to time, but not enough to be annoying or cause a significant slow-down. 

If you take a look at the skein, it really looks like a mess.  But apparently it is not.  When I watch the yarn unwinding, I see it go back and forth across the width of the skein.   Clearly these skeins are made in a manner different from my process.

THE OTHER END

Also, the white thread visible at the top of the skein is the piece of 20/2 pearl cotton which is tied on to the other end of the skein.  Clearly that will be easy to find if I need it.

Related Posts: 
   Silk Skein Dyed and Dry
   Winding Weft Yarn for Dyeing Continues

“Winding the Dyed Silk Onto Cones” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 31, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WINDING WEFT YARN FOR DYEING CONTINUES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

As I continued winding skeins of this 60/2 silk, winding it from my Goko skein-winder to my LeClerc skein winder got a bit easier. I still couldn’t, most of the time anyway, simply wind the LeClerc skein winder and have the yarn freely come off the Goko. Instead I pulled the yarn off the Goko by hand, piling it up on the floor and over my legs. Then I wound the loose yarn onto the LeClerc. That would give me about 5-7 yards of silk.

HICCUPS

Sometimes when I came to the end I would find the yarn feeding smoothly off the Goko for a little bit, or with only slight hiccups that I could deal with easily with my left hand. The really tough hiccups that forced me to stop happening just a little less frequently. So things were easing up.

What causes these hiccups? I don’t know. The yarn gets caught by the yarns further inside the skein. And I don’t know what causes that either. In any case, this was going much more smoothly than some of my earlier frantic unwinding some of my dyed skeins of silk organzine. So I was grateful for that.

SKEIN TO CONE

When I finally finished winding off six separate skeins for dyeing—three for blues and three for reds—I decided to wind off the rest of the original skein onto a cone.

Now things got progressively easier until, when I hit about the 900-yard mark, the unwinding started going very smoothly. All I had to do from that point on was to turn the LeClerc skein winder and let the yarn coming from the Goko run over my left hand. Though I could feel tiny catches happening with some frequency, rarely did I have to use my left hand to undo a bad catch.

A BROKEN YARN

And then I ran out of yarn. But there was still a lot of yarn left on the Goko. I knew there was a broken yarn somewhere. I had seen the two individual ends periodically as I wound. So I knew this was going to happen. I couldn’t find the broken end in the skein. Fortunately, however, I had tied a contrast yarn to the other end of the skein itself before I started winding so that I found easily.

What worried me was………….am I back to slow winding off again?

Well I was, but only for a little while, maybe for 3 yards. Then everything went smoothly again until I had a total of 2,166 yards wound on the cone.

NEXT SKEIN?

I am now thinking that the next time I go through this I may just begin by winding the entire skein onto a cone and then making the small dyeing skeins from that. Just an idea for now. Part of this will depend on how unwinding the dyed skein goes. Stay tuned!

Related Posts:
That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn
Disappointment

“Winding Weft for Dyeing Continues” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

DISAPPOINTMENT

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

On Friday, I got things ready to dye the warp for the silk crackle scarf/sample. To read some about this project go to this post, Crackle Shawl: Initial Thoughts on Design. Also this post: Words of Wisdom. I planned to use one of the 100-gram skeins of yarn I purchased from Treenway for the warp. Because this is a lot of yarn to dye, I had decided not to use dye stock solutions to mix for the color I wanted. Instead I chose to weigh and mix the dye powders directly into the water.

I had worked out the weight of powder I would need for each color. Now I had to get ready to do the mixing. This happens in the garage.

I covered the counter in the garage with newspaper. I gathered the equipment and supplies i needed, put them on a tray and brought the tray out to the garage. I got my box of Lanaset dye powders and brought them to the garage. Then I got out the colors I needed. No violet. I took every jar of powder of the box. No violet. I came inside and checked the storage area to see if I had put the jar away on the shelf without putting it in the box. No. No violet.

This was so unexpected. I try very hard to order a new jar of dye powder when I see a color running low. I still think I have misplaced it. Nevertheless, I ordered more from ProChem Now I have to wait till I receive it.

But I did put the dyeing time on Friday to good use. I worked out the formulas for the weft colors I plan to use. But I could work out only the percentages. I had to make and then weigh the skeins first before I could flesh out the percentages with actual amounts of dye stock solutions.

So today, ready to start working with weft yarns, I went to get my cone of 60/2 silk. I simply cannot find it. I know there wasn’t much left on it, but it is so much easier to use cones to make small skeins from. So I ordered a cone from Webs.

Eager, however, to get to work on this, I decided to try to unwind one of the Treenway 100-gram skeins. It is tied with figure-of-eight ties in four places, each tie covering four groups. My assumption was that, after I had the skein on the skein winder correctly, I could slip my fingers through the spaces between groups, working my way around the skein until all the groups were nicely aligned. I had not tried this before. But I do this with my own skeins, so why not Treenway’s? I couldn’t get it to happen. I struggled and struggled and struggled. I just couldn’t.

So I went to work unwinding. The photo on the left shows a corner of my very messy sewing and yarn-handling room. It also shows my skein winding setup. In the lower left corner is my Goko skein winder with the Treenway silk skein on it. The yarn goes from their through the yardage counter attached to my little table in the center. I need that so that I unwind only the amount I need for each skein. And from there the yarn goes onto my LeClerc skein winder which has just a bit of yarn wound on it from the Goko.

Getting the yarn off the skein for the first time around was really difficult. It was very tangled and twisted with neighboring and not-so-neighboring threads. It was awful. The second round was a little easier. Now it seems to be working the way it should, though it still sticks too badly to be able to simply unwind it. I have to pull it off the skein winder as I turn it for a couple of turns. Then I wind the loosened yarn onto the skein winder I am using to make the small skein. I am hoping this changes so that the silk feeds off the skein winder easily. But I’m not counting on it.

One of the things I am watching is where in the skein the yarn feeds from. The first time through, it came from both the first and second group of yarns on the skein. But now it is coming only from the first group. I can tell because, though I have removed the ties, I can still see the separations at the places where the ties were. If this continues, I will know that I was on the right track with my earlier struggles and will persevere at it with the next skein.

Related Post:
Skeins to Cones
Skeining Photos
Tying Skeins
Skein Making

“Disappointment” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 9, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

MAKING THE HANDSPUN WARP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Before I can wind the warp bouts from my handspun, I have to convert my skeins to cones.  Some people convert theirs to balls, using a ball winder.  I have found, however, that the yarn unwinds much more easily from a cone than from a ball.  So I use a (relatively) inexpensive cone winder I purchased from Halcyon Yarns years ago.

An annoying cost, however, is that of the cones.  I have accumulated quite a few.  There is a way to save money here I learned recently.  Spinning Lizzy posted a wonderful tutorial here on her blog which shows how to to create cardboard cones you slip over the cone winder and then remove with the yarn wound on it.  This is similar to making cardboard cones for a ball winder, something I have occasionally done.  But the technique is a little more complex.  Go to her blog to learn how.

The first thing I need to do is to slip the skein over my skein winder.  Yes, this skein winder, by LeClerc, can function as a swift, or unwinder, as well.  In fact it works better than a swift because there is no danger of the skein falling down.  It operates more smoothly as well. And if the yarn is uncooperative (as fine silks tend to be), I can use the handle with my left hand and turn it in a rhythm to synchronize with the right-hand turning of the handle of the cone winder.

To ensure that the skein will come off smoothly, I snap it between my hands a few times. This helps to align the yarn.

Then I put it on the skein winder.  As I put it on I look at the places where I made the figure-of-eight ties.  I look for the knots.  I want all the knots to be in the same place.  Either at the back of the skein or at the front of the skein. In this case, they are at the front of the skein. 

Once on the skein winder, I then stick my finger in the spaces formed by the crossing of the holding ties and slip it all around the entire skein.  I do this with each space. In this skein there are three spaces. When I do this I always find some of the yarn has moved over with the next group where it does not belong.  I pull it away and bring it home.   If I did not, when I got to that bit of yarn in the unwinding, it would undoubtedly get caught and stick a bit and force me to stop and settle it down.

Once I am satisfied that the yarns are all aligned as well as they can be, I remove the ties and attach the yarn to the cone winder.

 

The photo on the left shows the yarn as it goes from the skein winder to the cone winder and gets wound onto the cone.  The photo on the right shows a detail of the cone winder. 

And here is a full wound cone.  I wound two more cones and from there I went on to make the warp.

Winding bouts for warping is not really any different from winding handspun yarn.  I try to exert less tension, however, because my handspun wool is very stretchy.  I have never woven with knitting yarn, but I imagine that it too is stretchy.  The last handspun warp I made jumped into a shorter length when I took it off the board.  It was visibly quite surprising.  This warp did not.

I really enjoyed winding these bouts. I loved the feel of the yarn as it went through my hands.  Soft, yet, because of the bits of rayon and silk incorporated into the fiber, it was at the same time silken.  Quite delicious.

Related Post:
Skeins to Cones
Tying Skeins

“Making the Handspun Warp” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 18, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

YELLOWS WOUND ON BOBBINS & DYEING SKILLS

No need to use pirns for end-feed shuttles since I am not using shuttles. 

These were only 50-yard skeins and the winding off onto the bobbins went very easily with my manual bobbin winder.  However, more and more I am thinking that what has caused my winding-off problems has been my dyeing techniques.

SANDRA RUDE DYES 60/2 BOMBYX SILK

Sandra Rude of Sandra's Loom Blog routinely winds and dyes very large skeins of 60/2 silk.  Moreover, though she does make her figure-of-eight crosses in four places on the skein, she divides the skein only in half.  She kindly gave me these details in response to my questions.  You can read her post on this here.

MOVING THE SKEINS EVERY WHICH WAY

When I first started dyeing skeins of 60/2 silk I wanted the dye to penetrate evenly and I did not want the ties to leave any white spots.  To achieve these ends, I moved the skeins around a lot in the dye pot.  And I turned and turned them. 

UP AND DOWN ONLY

Lately I have been gingerly experimenting with moving them only up and down in the dye pot.  Basically, I lift the skein up by a polyester cord.  I lift it out of the dye liquor and then let it drop gently back into the dye pot. 

With each succeeding dye job I have moved closer and closer to this procedure;  and with each succeeding dye job the winding off has been easier.  And the dying has been level.  And there have been no dreaded white spots from the ties.

NUMBER OF SECTIONS IN A FIGURE-OF-8 TIE

Nevertheless, even with 60/2 bombyx silk rather than this difficult silk organzine, I will not have the courage to wind a 1,000 yarn skein and divide it only in half.  Why?  If there is a problem in winding from the skein to a cone, I have found the problem can be isolated to the particular group of threads that is encased in one section of the figure-of-eight tie.  If those sections are small, say 150 yards each,the problem is limited to those 150 yards.  If the section is 500 yards, the problem can last for a great deal longer!

Related Posts: 

Dyeing Yellows
Winding Cones: Have I Found the Secret?

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