COMMISSION 1 OF 4Ottoline Ward
SINGLES FOR THE WARP
COUNT6 Nm TWISTTM 4.0 WAYZ SPUN0 / 6 m
SPINDLE
Yarn is two things happening at once. You draw the roving out thin with one hand and put twist into it with the other — get either one wrong and the yarn is soft and hairy, or hard and brittle, or it parts in your hands.
Four commissions, one great wheel, and a distaff that runs down while you work. Hold the count with the draft, hold the twist with the treadle, and keep every tension bar off the red.
The wheel waits.
The roving, the order book and the bobbin are all where you left them.
Two hands, one wheel.
- 1 2 3 / TAP A CARD
- Choose a spindle. Only the spindle you have chosen will take your hands — the others keep running on the last setting you gave them, and both settings drift while you are away.
- W S / ▲▼
- Draft. More draft draws the roving thinner, so the yarn counts finer. Too much and you burn through the distaff before the hank is metred.
- D A / ◀▶
- Treadle. The wheel turns, the flyer takes up yarn and lays twist into it. Twist travels back from the spindle into the fibre you are holding — too fast and the zone tightens and the yarn snaps.
- SHIFT
- Fine adjustment on both.
- SPACE
- Hold the yarn back. It kills the tension but you make no progress while you do.
- E
- Tie in after a break. Costs you 1.4 metres and a join in the yarn.
- Z·S BUTTON
- Choose which way the wheel turns. A single spun the wrong way is no use to the buyer.
- X
- Cast off, once every leg is metred.
- M H ESC
- Mute / these notes / pause.
The count readout is metres per thousand grams. The twist multiplier is turns per inch times diameter in millimetres: under 3 is soft and hairy, over 4.2 is hard and will break in the weave. The tension bar is the difference between what the wheel is putting in and what the fibre can take.