In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes >My take is that it is the way thread is twisted in the manufacturing process >that matters. You want to thread it in a needle in the same direction as it >comes off the manufacturer's spinning equipment. The tiny fiber ends will lay >down better in that direction and not be bent backwards (against the grain).
The end that comes off the manufacturer's spinning equipment is the end that is at the start of the reel/cop it is wound onto, not the end... in hand spinning (spindle - I haven't experience of wheel) the fibre ends face away from the end being added to - ie towards the spindle. It follows that if this end was then wound onto a reel (rather than being made into a "butterfly" on the hand from which you can draw the correct end) then the end coming from the reel would have the fibre ends facing the needle, not away from it. This is why you pull thread from the centre of a skein, and wool from the centre of the ball. In the manufacturing process, is the resulting product wound immediately onto the small, 100m (etc) reels we buy, or is there an intermediate large cop (after all, most thread is produced for garment manufacturers who use much larger quantities - the domestic market is a spin-off, if you will excuse the pun)? My grandmother (wardrobe mistress to the Royal Shakespeare Touring Company during the early 1900s) always said to thread the needle with the "end from the reel". This is ambiguous - the end away from the reel, or the end nearest to the reel? Using reeled threads on sewing machines shows that some threads "shed" more than others, (even threads of the same manufacturer!) so I suspect that these threads are wound the other way onto the reel (ie the rough end comes off first). Presumably a case of always test the nap direction before starting a new reel? -- Jane Partridge -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.7/60 - Release Date: 28/07/2005 - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
