Week 4: Wool Lab Data – Group C

I was the lab recorder for group C this week. Some of my measurements are a little unorthodox due to the more challenging nature of recording data for this week. I focused on time per volume of wool worked in each activity, and the feeling of difficulty, etc in working the wool.

Spinning

We spun first right out of the gate so I this should be a good representation of how much we could spin with our 1/2 oz. of wool. Though we got better at it the longer we spun

	Wool Spun	Time	Minutes per oz.
Julia	0.125 oz	75 minutes	600
Emmet	0.5 oz	65 minutes	130
Glen	0.25 oz.	75 minutes	300

While our rates of spinning varied wildly, it is important to remember that we had inconsistent and varied thicknesses of yarn spun. As thicker yarn spins faster in terms of volume over time than thinner thread. I recorded my data from the past 2 days spinning at 2 mostly consistent thicknesses.

Thickness of Yarn	Wool Spun	Time	Minutes per oz.
4 mm	0.5 oz.	30 minutes	60 minutes
1 mm	0.4 oz	90 minutes	225 minutes

I found that the longer I spin, the faster I go, and I believe that if I was to spin for an entire day and measure the amount spun from the first hour to the last, it would be a lot more.

Weaving

We each got to weave for 15 minutes of the looms, and some varied time on the heddle loom. I only recorded the data from the frame looms, as the heddle loom was inconsistent in usage. The yarn was about 4 mm thick. Each row weaved was about 2-3 mm in distance due to it getting squished by the comb.

	Rows Weaved	Distance (mm)	Rows per minute	Distance per minute
Julia	5	15 mm	0.333	1 mm
Emmet	7	21 mm	0.466	1.4 mm
Glen	7	21 mm	0.466	1.4 mm

Weaving took a long time to get some meaningful progress, and that combined with the hours of spinning required for the amount of yarn we spun, it gave a very insightful perspective of the amount of time to weave a garment.

Carding

We carded, last, and unfortunately didn’t get much time, if any, to spin the yarn we carded ourselves. Carding was the most physically intensive of all the activities, but it moved the most amount of wool the quickest. We carded for 15 minutes in rotation.

Amount Carded	Time	Minutes per oz
2.3 oz	15 minutes	6.5 minutes per oz

From start to finish(carding to weaving) you can see how much time spinning takes up, as it constricts the amount of wool available for weaving, even though there is a large supply of carded wool available. For example, I finished spinning a section of the wool I carded. It was about 0.5 oz and, so it took about 3 minutes to card, but it took almost 2 hours to fully spin into yarn!