Howdy Fibernetters,
I finally had a significant amount of time to spend with the fiber tonight
(two whole consecutive hours!), and I'd like some feedback on what I
noticed.
I'm combing some Corriedale fleece that I washed probably about a year ago.
It's sticky, although it most definitely wasn't like this when it was
freshly washed. I'm guessing I didn't get out the lanolin entirely? It's
impeding the combing process, mostly, and it hampers the spinning somewhat
because my hand gets tacky and sticks to the fibers. Is the soap flakes
and alcohol method truly the best way to really get rid of the lanolin
permanently? When I wash it, I really don't like this whole lanolin thing
coming back to haunt me. I do spritz with water+conditioner before
combing/spinning.
Corollary question: If I had a sweater that had gone sticky, could I safely
wash it in hot water (like I wash fleece - hot soaks with Orvus, hot
rinses) w/o it shrinking?
Corollary questin the second: Cyril's recipe calls for 90% isopropanol, or
denatured alcohol... Has anyone used 95% ethanol for this? (We keep a
giant carboy of this stuff at work, no one notices if I "borrow" a little
of it from time to time.)
The other thing I want to ask about is take up tension. The drive band on
my Schacht DT was on its way out, so I changed it to one of S'getti string.
I'm keeping the double drive configuration, sort of, with one closed loop
of S'getti on the whorl and the other closed loop of cabled cotton yarn on
the bobbin. I found a strange phenomenon tonight - if I had the largest
whorl on (9:1), the cotton band could be very loose (easily "indented" by
pushing on it) and still have good take up. With the smallest whorl
(19.5:1), I could tighten it till you could hear the string "plink" when
you plucked it, and it had no take up whatsoever. Schachtspindle.com
doesn't recommend its high speed bobbins for anything other than their
23.5:1 and higher ratios. What should I do?
Thanks in advance,
-j.
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