SPINNING EXPERIMENT

In the town of Gualupita there used to be a blooming textile industry. In the nineteen thirties, one family invested in a range of large machines for spinning wool, to supply the local textile workshops with the yarns that were in high demand. Since then a lot has changed, the textile industry has all but disappeared from Gualupita and the machines that have been in possession of the same family for three generations are now used no more than once or twice a week. 

The current owner was very curious about our samples of plastic yarn spun on a spinning wheel and spent an afternoon with us experimenting with our material on his twining machine. The machine could make around 160 bobbins of yarn at the same time, but since so far we're only making samples, we used two bobbins for our experiments and helped the spinner prepare the other bobbins to twine the wool he normally works with. 

This turned out t be a bit of a problem, because our plastic threads are much more fine and smooth than wool. The machine was perfectly adapted to thick wool but did not have enough tension for our thin material to spin well. Although the two bobbins of yarn we made look really nice, they are not of sufficient quality for us to work with. 

It's a pity the old machine doesn't work for us, it would have been great to give it a new purpose, but fortunately the spinner told us that most craftsmen that still remain in the village (mostly knitters) own spinning wheels. They use them not to spin yarns, but to wind yarns that are already spun, and they might be able to work with our material without too many changes. They meet once a week, and we are invited to their next meeting to see if someone would like to collaborate.