Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Aura experiments #1

Tonight I finished skein #1 of a commission, thus opening up the Majacraft Aura for experimentation.

Here is what I did:
I set the white tensioner band on the largest whorl, just tight enough to stay on
I set the green drive band on the largest whorl and largest drive wheel groove
The yarn path was through both the divet and the circular orifice

I got out the Brown Sheep Wool mill end brown & white striped top.

Short forward draw it was a bit hard to get the bobbin to take up at first. I actually started with a backward draw, trying to push lengths of yarn onto the bobbin w/o much luck. Switched to short forward (inch worm) and had no problem. I did tighten the tension a bit and then it went on handily. Very easy to get a fairly large single...a bit thick and thin as short draw is not my favorite, most practiced technique.

Long draw (and supported long draw) I made a rolag of the mill end top. It did not want to pull out quickly like I am used to. I tried to push it on the bobbin like I usually do...no go. But, when I held the yarn taughtly, at a 90 degree angle to the orifice, it went on the bobbin fine. It was the slowest long draw I have ever done, but it would appear to be an advantage for things like spinning clouds of mohair around a core or self core spinning.

Spinning off the fold I expected similar results to longdraw, but fluffiness did not happen. However, I tightened the white tensioning band and was able to do one handed spinning as long as I held the yarn taughtly at a 90 degree angle to the round orifice.

Buy progressively tightening the white band, I was able to easily increase the diameter of the single. One wonders how much fluffier carded fiber would be? I think I was fighting the commercial preparation a bit.

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