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Yes, patience will help. Once you have the techniques down setting up will be quick as you know what you need.

Never knew chicory had usable fiber? If it is usable and coarse I’d use it for cordage and not clothing.

I hackled because it was the fastest way to split the fibers in this case. I used already dead leaves then retted the dead leaves along with my retting flax in my retting tank. These took longer to rett and could have been left in even longer. I didn’t scrape much. Once I hackled them the pithy skins nearly just fell away anyway. Once dry they hackled nicely and I got fiber I could actually spin on the spinning wheel. Had I used green leaves I would have had to scrape every one of them one at at time. What a pain in the rear that would have been. I also opted to use the dead leaves because it allowed me to harvest without hurting the plant, ensuring the plant would continue to produce fibers into the future. I still have a bunch I let dry and they have been sitting a couple years now since retting. I can re-soak them and make them pliable enough to hackle and create more fiber. Right now they are brittle and easily broken so I mush rehydrate them to get the fibers. Once the fibers are out they will remain pliable. Good for cordage or good for spinning for making yucca yarn for weaving into cloth. If I let them rett more it will be easier to lightly scrape away the pulpy stuff. Anyway a little scraping is in order. Not sure how long to rett so no scraping is needed. Too much pulpy stuff will clog the hackle.

​@@abittwistedThere is a video from Clay Hayes where he retts yucca for 3 weeks then he just beat it on a rock. He got very clean fiber

Never heard of a sewing wheel. There are hand operated and foot operated sewing machines. I have a couple. Modern sewing machines are better than the older ones. Get a good quality one and any thing from the 1960's forward is fine for the average person sewing average things. Spinning wheels are for making yarn.

How snug do you have your whorl? It needs to be snug enough to not come unscrewed. No, I have no trouble with that issue. Ive not heard that it was a problem with anyone. But I can see it could be because the screw on many wheels is not huge and plying with a loose whorl could cause the whorl to unwind but maybe you need to lighten the tension on your drive band to just enough to allow the twist without slipping and just enough to draw your finished yarn without over twisting. Remember tension should be set to just enough to get the job done no matter if you are spinning singles or plying.

Would need to see a pic of the old wheel. If its an older Saxony style wheel the tensioner should be a screw at the end of the wheel to move the Mother of All forward or back which changes tension. The flyer whorl needs to be larger than the bobbin whorl. Im assuming a Double Drive wheel. If you have an Ashford Traditional the tensioner is the platform the Mother of All sits on and hinges away with a screw to tension the belt. But a picture would be helpful. Or a link to a picture that looks like your wheel. I’ll check it out and try to help get you up and running

If you look in my about section you will find my email address. You can send pics to my email and I’ll get back with you but identify who you are and that we are working on a problem you mentioned in this video. That way I won’t ignore it.

Yes, I took my flax tow and carded it well to help break it down into smaller fibers to a point then took that and blended it with wool in a 50/50 blend and the blend was by weight. The blended fiber is an interesting texture.

The current one Im using right now is early 80’s and the other one in the back ground is mid 70’s. Here is the link to the Ashford Time Line. www.ashford.co.nz/images/download_pdfs/info_sheet/traditional_timeline.pdf

My other Ashford was a late 80’s model and I upgraded to leather on the footman along with the double treadle and I replaced the maiden uprights with an older model that had leather flyer bushings because I prefer leather vs the Nylon/Graphite Bushings. However the Nylon/Graphite bushing really don’t need oiling either. That is a grand thing. I don’t mind the little oil I need on the leather bushings. I also have a Woolee Winder and it is the convertible model so I can spin in Scotch Tension or Double Drive. I do use both but Scotch Tension on that wheel seems to have more control than the DD in regard to tension adjustments. My Jensen D30 Wheel is a DD wheel and is very responsive to very light tension and that allows me to spin very very fine thread like two ply wool and flax. Im going to upgrade my Jensen to a Woolee Winder with three bobbins. That may very well be my only wheel I ever use again at home. I’ll keep the one Ashford for taking to shows since it is small and is already upgraded as much as I can get.

Drive band goes on the flyer whorl, not the bobbin. The string attached to the spring and adjuster knob goes around the bobbin with light tension. Once you have that set then you can adjust the tension of the bobbin to take up the thread without it being so tight it rips it out of your hands. Adjust slowly until you have the tension just light enough that when you allow the thread to be taken up it will take up the thread. You should be able to draw backwards on your thread as you are spinning and be able to pull the thread back without breaking. It is basically a scotch tension wheel. You could if you wanted set it up as a doube drive wheel but your whorls are limited to one speed. Best to leave it a scotch tension wheel. Ask questions if you are still having trouble and if you have suggestions for future videos please let me know.

Stinging Nettle which grows in the damp shade along the rivers. It provides much better quality cloth than Yucca. Once you initially process it there is no chance of prickly pokes from the stings. That is only on the outside of the plant and not where the fiber resides. If you search The Nettle Dress on youtube you will see a trailer of a documentary that was made about a guy that took 7 years to harvest and process stinging nettle to make a dress. The same nettle grows in our Pacific Northwest. It actually grows in many areas of the world. There are FB pages that deal with Nettle. Go to facebook and search for Nettles For Textiles and then join the group. There you can search for the nettle dress and see a bunch more that was incorporated into the documentary. Ive been following them for 6 years which is how long I have been doing the fiber thing.

But you can spin if you want to learn. Drop spindles are slower but they do work well. There are many ways to spin the fiber without a drop spindle or spinning wheel.

On youtube search for Mayan Hand Spinner. It may be something easier than a drop spindle for you. Suitable for any fiber spinning.

Yes. A block of wood and made 3 rows off set from each other and the nails are 3.5” Hot Dipped Galvanized nails. I used those because I did not want it to rust out quickly. The same technique can be used to make your own wool combs but use the smooth long finishing nails or like my recent one was to use 3.5” Stainless Steel finishing nails. I also sharpened the tips. It will never rust and you can comb out your wool or hackle your flax with them. Im going to hand make tapered nails for my next hackle similar to very old flax hackles. But yes, this hackle I made myself.

@@abittwisted I found a pin frog at Michaels that I have been using. The pins are stainless steel and have very sharp points. It works pretty good so far.

Did this let me respond?

Im able to respond here but the comment is not showing on my channel. Im having RUclips Issues. Yes, the cone will be an excellent way to hold the fiber and still let you draft out easily for your flax. Don't use too much but not too little either. Just play around with it for a bit.

When I process more this summer I will do just that. I will also process enough to make a small piece of cloth on my sample loom.

I’ll get the camera right in so you can see clearly next time. I do have video spinning flax up close which is very similar to what this was except this fiber is a bit coarser. I will also use water next time when I spin. It will be a better quality thread.

@@abittwisted Thanks! : )

It is a floral frog. It is used to keep flowers from flopping around in a vase. It sits at the bottom and the stems stick into it and hold its position. It is all I had available. It only cost a few bucks but after using it I would recommend using small finishing nails in a board. Just make your own hackle. Because these were wet when I put the yucca on them this small frog clogged up pretty quickly. A more open hackle would have less issue. This was also difficult because it was not mounted securely to a table.

@@abittwisted I finally found a pin frog at Michaels. It works great for the final removal of pulp from the fibers after I scraped most of it off. Running the fibers through that pin frog does produce nicer, cleaner fibers to work with. I don’t have access to the nice wide and thin leaf yucca. My sources are thicker, whether narrow or wide. So I pound the leaves to breakup, loosen and spread out the pulp and fibers on each leaf, then soak them in water for a while. Thicker, denser pulpy leaves need longer soaking time. I tried soaking thicker, dried, yellow leaves recently, but I did not have success, possibly because I pounded the leaves after soaking to loosen the pulp instead of peeling like you did. The fibers did not survive the pounding, even though it was light pounding. The last thick yucca leaves I processed produced a larger diameter of fibers. If they had been much thicker they would have looked like angel hair pasta! They are stiffer to work with to make cordage.

Working on it now. It is not an extensive look at plying but I’ll show what I do to ply onto my bobbin. Plying is quite easy. Is there something specific you’d like me to show?

I spin wool clockwise for the singles and counter clockwise for the ply. Plying is faster than spinning the initial thread. Sometimes I use a larger whorl to counter excess twist from the singles. Not always. This one I used the same whorl for both the singles and ply.

I use hot water and Mrs Meyers Clean Day hand soap. The hot water is what gets the lanolin out. So what I have been doing is doing a cold or cool water wash to get the dirt and oils out then I rinse with cold to get the soapy water out and the remaining dirt. While Im doing that I prepare a large SS Container used for frying turkeys in with water and put it on the fryer burner outside and heat up the water. It does not need to be boiling hot but it needs to be 160 to 180 or more degrees. More Mrs Meyers Clean day hand soap and in for a hot water bath. While that is soaking in the hot water melting the lanolin and cleaning out more gunk I prepare another container with fresh hot water. Be sure to press out the wool when you are done soaking in the hot water so little to no water remains. I have a bit that came with my turkey frier that allows me to do that. Once drained again I put it into the next batch of hot water. By doing the cold water wash first you can actually do a couple batches of wool in the hot water before you need to replace the water. The second round of hot water is the same and then you might be able to ditch the first batch of hot water outside in a safe place you won’t walk for some time so the contents can decompose. Make a third batch of hot water and do a rinse. Rinse it good. In the summer time I set out water in the sun to make warm rinse water. If you let your hot wool cool down you can do a couple final rinses to be sure your fiber is clean and lanolin free. Lay it out to dry in the sun. If it doesn’t dry in a day bring it in then set it out again the next day, Turning and fluffing up a bit so it dries. I have drying racks so my wool gets full air from all around. Also don’t agitate your wool in the bath and don’t put your hot wool directly into cold water or you risk felting the wool. I have clean wool that I cleaned with cold/cool water and got the dirt and grease out but left the lanolin in. It is kind of greasy feeling when you spin in the grease or with lanolin. I at least wash cold if I want to spin in the grease so my wool is clean yet full of lanolin. Warm water can get some lanolin out. Harsh detergents can make your wool scratchy.

Ive not found that to be true. In fact I have an Ashford Scotch Tension Flyer from that only has hooks on one side and its not out of balance for the speeds needed to spin yarn. I purchased a wheel that was manufactured back in the 80’s that only has hooks on one side. So with that I recommend at minimum 9 hooks on a side if not a few more. Maybe 12 small hooks if you are spinning fine yarns. It keeps the bobbin nice n tidy. Or you could have 8 on one side and 9 on the other side. Both sides face up so you can switch from side to side yet have large hook and use the large hooks only when you are spinning bulky stuff. I also have wheels with the same amount of hooks each side spaced exactly the same yet only one side allows you to string the yarn through the orifice basically making one side totally useless. Other wheels from other countries have the hooks on the opposite side we put them here in the US. But over all it doesnt matter. if you got the flyer to spin fast enough to knock it off balance badly then all you need to do is drill and fill with lead a bit of weight so to balance from side to side if you really wanted. The hooks I put on this flyer do not knock the flyer off balance and anything you see that looks off balance is not due to the flyer and the hooks on one side.

Quite a rare one indeed. Now I know about 3 of them. I had to modify the end of the flyer as the end kept popping out of the leather bearing. I filed a deeper notch then I put in a new leather bushing. I drilled a hole just a tiny bit larger in diameter and the width of the groove I filed into was a perfect with to the leather bushing. I cut a slot from the top to the new hole and it just popped right in without the need to move the upright on the mother of all. I had new bobbins made so I have more than one. I also had a couple new whorls made so I could spin flax better without too much twist. It is a good wheel. It is my first wheel I purchased for myself. In my about page you will find the email you can use to contact me about the wheel and to send pics of the wheel. I can help better if I can see the in detail. Just remember to lubricate all the moving parts. I use clear stain free sewing machine oil that you can get off of Amazon.

In my quest to learn the spindle, yes and I find it a pain in the rear. Im going to try again. What is needed I think is to have a larger length of paper on the spindle and be sure to wind reasonably tight onto the copp. Then weigh out the copp when done and make another one with the same amount of weight then remove them both and ply directly from that. My last attempt was pretty pathetic in that I wound onto the copp too loosely and when you wind off and the yarn gets stuck it just burries into the remaining yarn making it even more difficult. You also need to be sure you remove the copp and just put it on a metal spike to allow it to spin freely and loosly so you dont get that burring effect. Im learning but I can say I like the flyer better. Until I get good with the spindle that won’t change. There may be a day I prefer the spindle. Who knows. Over all I think it is a step backwards and not forwards.

I'm on a parallel trajectory to master the one-handed spindle on a great wheel. @@abittwisted

@@crowznest438 I have found that the shorter the staple the easier it is to do longdraw one handed.

Definitely. And as airy as possible. I'm determined to get there. @@abittwisted

It’s a Wonderful Wheel. One of the half spokes is broken flush. It would be nice to get a replacement made. I’d have to drill out so I’ve opted to not replace it. The wheel spins wonderful and has become my favorite.

This wheel is long gone.

What I have been able to observe over the years is that a wheel that is out of alignment with the whorls can cause it to jump off the wheel. A fuzzy drive band that snags upon itself will cause the band to jump off the wheel and a big fat knot will cause the opposing side to catch and jump the band off as it comes to the big knot. This is why you tie your drive band together or use very skinny knots. I typically use my own home made linen drive bands and because linen is fuzzy by nature it will easily snag upon itself at the cross point and cause it to jump off the wheel. My fix is to wax my drive band real well to remove any fuzziness and the knots I use are small so they don't readily catch at the cross point causing the band to jump. My drive bands are rather skinny. If your band is thick you should tie your ends together so you don't have the knot issue and wax your band well. It will help it live longer and remove any fuzziness. Adjust your tension accordingly. Not too tight or loose but sometimes you need real light tension so be sure your wheel is in proper alignment.