The EEW 6.0 is now available in my store! I’d like to thank the community for all the feedback and suggestions on previous versions which helped make this the best eSpinner I’ve ever made.
I will finish shipping them to Kickstarter backers by Monday and that is when I’ll be shipping out the first batch of orders from my webstore. So if you or some of your friends were interested in the EEW 6.0, but missed the Kickstarter now is your chance. If you are curious what goes into unloading them from the truck, I made this video of where I did that exhausting unload.
Yarn Softness
This video covers what fiber micron count is and how it is one factor that affects fiber softness, which is useful information for those buying yarn online. Then I explain two ways to measure micron count yourself at home, and talk about how these results work compared to lab testing your fiber. I also wrote a blog post that contains related information about this whole process.
Happy spinning!
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
If you enjoy a fiber craft like knitting, spinning, crocheting, or weaving; then this article is for you. The reason measuring micron count matters is because micron count can be a good approximation for softness. A smaller micron count means the fibers are thinner and that often leads to a softer yarn.
If you can’t feel the yarn because you are buying it online, then micron count is a great way to get an estimate of yarn softness. Different people will have different meanings for soft. An online review saying the wool is “super soft” doesn’t help you understand how soft yarn really is. However, if you say the yarn is 15 micron Merino that will help a lot if you have been looking at micron count for awhile. A lot of yarn doesn’t report the micron count, but my hope is with this article will help with that. I’d like to see more people start reporting the micron count in online reviews which will help make more informed yarn purchases.
By the way, I’m certainly not trying to say everyone should buy all their yarn online. If you have a local yarn shop or fiber festival I encourage you to support them. Feeling yarn in person is always better than trying estimate the feel from photos and reviews. However, the reality is a lot of fiber lovers buy some of their yarn/rovings online these days and I’d like to make the process better with this article.
Background Information
One of the important measurements when looking at wool and other fibers is it’s micron count. Micron (or micrometer) is the measurement for measuring the diameter of a single fiber. For example Merino fleece will contain fibers with diameters as low as 10 microns or thicker fibers of maybe 25 micron diameter. A micron is one millionth of a meter or one thousandth of a millimeter.
Certified fiber labs can accurately measure samples when you want official micron counts. There are two reasons a lab typically does this measurement. First the tools they use to analyze the fiber require some training to use properly and if not used properly you’ll get the wrong results. Secondly, the tools they use are expensive. One of the typical tools is the OFDA2000 which typically costs around $60,000-$75,000. A newer tool called a FiberLux costs a little over $2,000. My general understanding from what I’ve read is the OFDA2000 is basically the standard way of measuring fiber and the verdict is still out if the newer FiberLux is accurate enough to replace it in some use cases (this was written in early 2021). Here is an article with more options if you are interested in more details about various ways micron counts are measured.
Measuring Yarn Micron Count Yourself
Before these automated machines people would look under microscopes to manually measure fiber. This is interesting option, but requires a lot of a lot of time and training to learn how to measure fibers consistently and accurately under a microscope. I did some research and found a common way to measure human fiber (we call it hair) is using laser diffraction and interference. This sounds complicated, but is actually pretty straight forward. You basically shine a laser pointer at a hair and then due to the how light works it will create a pattern of bright and dark wave pattern on the wall. You know the distance from the hair to the wall, the distance between these light/dark pattern on the wall, and the wavelength of your laser pointer so you can calculate the diameter of the hair with this equation.
Note for those not wanting to do the math I added a calculator below on this page that does it for you.
hair_diameter = (wavelength of laser) / (distance_between_light_dark_pattern / distace_to_wall)
For example when I measured one of my hairs, I was using a red laser with a wavelength of 650nm. The distance to the wall was 651 cm. The distance between the light/dark pattern was 4.8 cm. Using the equation above gave me a hair diameter of 88,000 nm, or 88 micrometers. If your laser pointer doesn’t list its wavelength you can use 650nm for red lasers and 532nm for green lasers.
Another simpler method is is to use a Micrometer. That link is the one I used which has a 0.001mm resolution which is a 1 micrometer resolution. I did a lot of testing with it and it was quite consistent, but it was consistently less than the light diffraction method above. I think the reason for this is using a Micrometer can squish the yarn. So to get accurate measurements you should either use the light diffraction method or practice with the micrometer on known fibers until you get a good feel for how much pressure to use without squishing the fiber. I talk about this more in the video below.
So those are the two methods I used to get fiber diameter and each one cost me under $40. I created the video below that goes into more detail on these two methods of measuring a fiber’s micron count.
Primitive breeds tend to be far less consistent in micron count, both between animals and even within an individual fleece, so for those it’s especially important to take measurements from several areas if you want a decent average, or to grade the fleece well. Modern wool sheep are bred for fiber consistency, so for them it’s less of a big deal, though you’ll likely still find a bit of difference between the neck (finer) and the britch (coarser).
Fiber Micron Calculator
Press submit to get results.
Measuring Fiber at a Wool Testing Lab
I did some searching with some labs that test fiber samples. The best two options I found were New Zealand Wool Testing Authority (NZWTA) and Montana Wool Lab. The online documentation for NZWTA is much better so if you want to do more research online I’d recommend their website. That said I have contacted the Montana Wool Lab because shipping them samples is easier for me since they are located in the USA. Contacting the Montana Wool Lab by email (mtwool@montana.edu) and phone (406-994-2100) worked for me.
When I emailed Montana Wool Lab they gave me this submission form and this document that explains report you get on your fiber samples. You can see their prices as of March 2021 on the submission form linked above, and they seemed very reasonable to me. Example each wool sample I want tested would cost me only $3.
I found their fiber report document very informative. It explains they don’t just measure the one fiber, or a few fibers. They measure the diameter of many fibers and provide you with an average fiber diameter plus a standard deviation from that average value. With that information you’ll know a lot more about the fiber than measuring just a few fibers like my DIY approaches in the previous section. They also include a comfort factor which is the percentage of fibers that are 30 microns in diameter or less because this has been found to be a diameter that can cause skin irritation.
Judith MacKenzie says that a mix of high and low micron counts in a yarn is what causes the itchy feeling, more than simply high micron fibers alone. I haven’t verified this myself, but Judith is well known in this field so I want to share this.
I’m planning to send in some samples and get some reports from Montana Wool Lab in the future. I haven’t done it yet, but will report back when I have results from them.
Help spread the word about micron count and share this post with a friend.
I’d like to thank Vampy who reviewed an early draft of this blog post and provided some great feedback.
Hello fiber lovers! I’m back this month to give you an update on all the most important EEW news. Enjoy.
Should We do an EEW Nano Update?
I’ve started thinking about what to do for the next batch of EEW Nanos. The reason I mention this is because I need to decide soon if I want to just order more of the 1.1 version that I’m currently shipping, or spend time making a new version. I’d like to hear back from the community on what you’d like to see improved. I am somewhat limited in what I can do because I’d want to keep the price around the current $110 so I obviously can’t put all the improvements that you’d get with the EEW 6.0. That said I have several ideas on things that wouldn’t change the price much, but would improve the quality quite a bit. I know a lot of spinners love the small form factor of the EEW Nano and a lot of others who enjoy it’s price so I do want to keep those about the same. I’d love to hear from the community if they think I should spend time on improvements to a new version of the Nano for next year or focus on some of the other projects I’ve been talking about in these updates. If you want to help you can either fill out this survey. Thanks!
EEW 6.0 Update
This month there is some great news to announce with the EEW 6.0. The manufacturing is complete and they are now on a boat headed towards Boston. Once they get to my warehouse, I will do a final inspection and should be able to ship out all the orders by the end of April.
In addition to making the best eSpinner with the EEW 6.0, I wanted to have the best documentation. To that goal I partnered with Vampy and we created a video series to help more people learn to spin yarn so they can enjoy this wonderful craft. This series goes into much more depth than your quick spinning tutorial. After watching all the episodes you’ll understand not just how to spin, but you’ll know about several options for each stage of the spinning process and how to make the yarn you want. It covers everything from picking your first fibers to finishing the yarn. I’m super happy with these videos and think most of them are useful to a wide range of spinners. Check out the series here.
Happy spinning!
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
This past month I have been mostly focus on getting everything in place so I can start shipping the EEW 6.0 eSpinners out as soon as possible. More about this below. Other than that I’ve been making good progress on the Yarn Counter and Cone Winder projects. While I am planning to work on the CSM (circular sock knitting machine) in the future it isn’t a priority right now and I won’t be making progress for awhile. I will update you all when I start working on it again, but I just have too many projects that are being working on so one had to get put on the back burner and it is the CSM. Sorry for those of you who had that as the project as your most anticipated, but I didn’t want to leave you all in a limbo where you didn’t know what was happening with it. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I have time get back to working on the CSM.
EEW 6.0 Update
Previously I had been estimating the EEW 6.0 would be available in March on my store. This past month I pushed that back to April due to some logistic delays caused by Covid19. The good news is that assemble of the EEW 6.0 has finished and I now have a plan to get them shipped to my warehouse in Massachusetts where I’ll do final testing and shipping. So overall the EEW 6.0 is making great progress and if you missed the pre-order campaign on Kickstarter you will be able to start placing orders on my store in April. I have a high level of confidence there will be more than enough EEW 6.0s available since I ordered a bunch extra for this first batch so there is no need to worry about me running out of stock.
If you want to learn more I have started putting together this page about the EEW 6.0, and will continue adding more information and videos. I am super happy with that page so far. I’m now confident that the EEW 6.0 won’t just be the best eSpinner in it’s class, but it will also have the best documentation both for new spinners and those wanting to look at some of the more advanced techniques like supercoils.
EEW Cone Winder
In this video, I discuss the new improvements to the cone winder and then show how it works with yarn skeins on a swift. (Spoiler – It works great with a swift.)
Happy spinning!
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
Happy new year, and welcome to 2021! I hope this is a great year for all of you in the EEW community.
If you have any interest in writing, I offer up the very biased opinion that you should write about the EEW. It could be an article you want to write for a magazine, posting to your blog, or a video for youtube. If you ever have any questions for me, want some photos, or need anything else from me just ask. I’ll do my best to help. I released a video answering a bunch of questions people have asked recently, which you could incorporate into your own article if you want. In the video, I am transparent about how my businessis doing during the pandemic, what future products I’m planning, and I answer those and many other questions.
EEW Yarn Counter
This video explains the major improvements since the last prototype video like a new clamp, louder buzzer, flip screen, and a lot more. I also give a rough time frame estimate for the Kickstarter for this at the end of the video.
Happy spinning!
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
I’ve made a special discount code for you. You can save 10% on any products in my store by using the coupon code “end2020special” during checkout. Use this code to get someone else a gift or to get yourself something. Anyone can use this code so if you want to share it with your friends or online that is fine. This code will expire on January 1, 2021.
Circular Sock Knitting Machine
In this video I showed some prototype circular sock machines I’ve made and mention some critical decisions I need to make going forward. I’ve already started working on a new prototype to incorporate some of the great feedback I received, but I’m always looking for more feedback.
Cone Winder
Here is a new Cone Winder video update. It has a lot of improvements since the last update three months ago.
EEW 6.0 Bobbin Winder Accessory
While the EEW 6.0 hasn’t shipped yet, I decided to make an accessory for it that will help wind bobbins. It doesn’t do level winding like the Cone Winder that I mentioned above, but I give away the plans to make this kind of bobbin winder for the EEW 6.0 for those who want to try this. This video explains the EEW 6.0 bobbin winder accessory and the description of the video has a parts list.
Spinning Instructors
I generate this list of spin instructors for those who want some one on one help. Also if you would like to get added to this list feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to put you on this list.
Discord Server
Discord is a website/platform that allows for chatting. It supports text, voice, and video chatting. I decided to setup an EEW discord server.
This year due to the pandemic our town recommended not going out for traditional Halloween trick or treat. Instead we decided to have a small party at our house with my five year old daughter and the two other families we have podded with since this the beginning of the pandemic. I spent a lot of time planning about a dozen different games for the kids. I think the results were more fun than a traditional Halloween. This great experience has removed my worry about the other upcoming holidays being disappointments. I now feel excited to try and come up with alternative pandemic friendly twists on the holidays and will hopefully make some great memories just like we did for this Halloween. Below was one of our favorite games called donuts on a string, proving my daughter really will do just about anything for a donut.
Warmest Yarn
I did some testing to find the warmest yarn and was shocked with my test results since my testing found very different results than what you would find by searching for it online. I posted a video about it and made a blog post with a few more details. I got a lot of great feedback from this popular video and have already started thinking about ways to expand on this experiment.
EEW 6.0
I posted a video that shows what will come in the box of the EEW 6.0 in a Kickstarter update. It’s great to see how excited the community is for me to start shipping the EEW 6.0. If you missed the Kickstarter the best option is to signup for an email notification so you will be one of the first to know when it’s in stock and ready for order (estimated to be around February). I will of course announce this in the newsletter when the EEW 6.0 is in stock so if you don’t mind waiting for an extra few weeks this newsletter will work too.
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
The hot days of summer are over here in Massachusetts, and the cool nights of fall are here. It's an excellent time of the year for spinning, knitting, or your fiber craft of choice. Yippy!
I started posting a daily fiber related image to Instagram. If you are on Instagram, consider subscribing to my Instagram account to see some great EEW photos.
EEW 6.0 Review
The first public review of the EEW 6.0 has been posted here by Tanya one of my beta testers. Go check it out if you want to see what another person thinks about the EEW 6.0.
Spin Anywhere Contest Winners
Last month there was a photo competition. Joyo was the overall winning with the photo below. Congrats Joyo!
I'd also like to congratulate all the daily winners.
Joyo
Gwyn Krause
Joyo
Amanda Hannaford
Linda Samuelson
Erica Campbell
Lisa Sawyer
EEW Yarn Counter Update
I released a new video of my latest Yarn Counter prototype. I'm pretty happy with how it's functioning at this point and I've given out prototypes to a few beta testers to get more feedback at this point to find out what I else I can improve. A community poll helped me see what software behavior most people in the community want and have already updated the software to match the winning votes. That poll also showed the community overwhelmingly wants me to do another Kickstarter so I will do that when this product is ready. I still need to do a bunch more work refining the design and starting to get it ready for manufacturing so it will still be awhile, but I will keep you all updated.
There was another yarn counter video about how yarn size causes error in all the yarn counters that I know about and a possible solution I'm proposing. Based on the feedback from that video I have added the WPI solution I mentioned in the video and am seeing what my testers thing of it.
Here are the results to some of the yarn counter poll questions I sent to the community.
Antique Circular Sock Machine First Stitches
As I've mentioned before I'm restoring an antique knitting machine to learn more about these machines so I can decide if I want to make one for the community. I am still undecided on that question, but I made a lot of progress with my antique machine this past month. You can see a video here where I made a 3D printed cylinder and then started knitting with it.
– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
I hope you all have been enjoying your summer. The pandemic has caused us to cancel some of our travel plans; however, we have adapted and it’s been a fun summer for our family. We’ve done some socially distanced camping and hiking. My daughter has been learning to swim, and we practice nearly every hot day at our neighbor who has a small beach on a nice swimming lake.
Spin Anywhere Contest
I’m running a contest where you can win gift certificates to my store. You can submit photos either as explained in the full rules here, or another option is to just reply to this email with your photos, name, and email. The contest starts September 20th and runs for 8 days. You will be able to vote for your favorites each day on our Ravelry or Facebook group. #spinanywhere
EEW 6.0
During this past month I finished what should be the final prototype of the EEW 6.0. Now I’m focused very much on manufacturing and improving the documentation. This Kickstarter update has a lot more information.
Cone Winder
First off I want to thank you all for the suggestions and support you gave me on the last cone winder update. I took all that feedback and made a new functioning prototype and that is what I show off in this video. This is still in an early prototype stage and it needs a lot of refinement, but I’m happy with how things are going. If you have any suggestions or feedback let me know.
Circular Knitting Machine Restoration
I posted a third update to my project to restore a circular knitting machine. In this update I get some needles for it and then run into a new issue with the cylinder. Overall I’m happy with this project. I still haven’t decided if I’ll try to make one for my store, but I’m learning a lot and have been sharing that knowledge so the project is already a success. Here is a link to this video.
Spin Off Magazine Advertisement
Here is a photo of an ad I put in Spin Off Magazine. I have done a little digital advertiseing in the past, but this is the first time I’ve ever done a print advertisement for the EEW. Advertising in general is an area I don’t have much experience and is a skill I want to to grow. As an engineer I used to think that a good product will sell itself. While there is truth to that, advertising is important way to reach people who would want a product, but haven’t heard about it. Of course the best advertisement and the most important one for the EEW is word of month. So if you ever think you know someone who might be looking for a spinning wheel please tell them about your experiences with the EEW.
– Maurice Ribble (Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
The portability of the EEW lets people spin anywhere they want. On a couch, in a train, on a boat, or when camping. I’ve seen people using their EEW in all of those places and many more. This contest lets you share your favorite photos of interesting places you have used your EEW e-Spinner.
The way the contest works is you can email me your photos. Then September 20-26th 2020 each day I will be making a poll with several of the photos sent to me and will post a poll to the Ravelry and Facebook EEW groups. The photo that gets the most valid votes each day will get a $20 gift certificate that you use on my store. At the end I will have one more vote with all seven daily winners and the grand winner of that poll will win a $100 gift certificate to my store.
To enter send an email to support@dreamingrobots.com titled “Spin Anywhere Contest” with your photos attached. Please include your name so I can give credit for the photos. If you can please submit full resolution jpg images and keep the total size of each email under 20 MB. You can send multiple emails if you have over 20MB of images.
By submitting photos to this contest you are giving me permission to reuse them in any way I want to market current and future EEWs. This does not give me exclusive rights so you can still use the photo yourself however you want. I will email any winners, and will also announce the winning photos to the EEW community.
Email me your submissions right now, or go and take new photos with your EEW so you can enter those. I will upload photos as I get them to this album.
You may only enter if your local laws allow it and you must have the rights to use your photo in this manner.
