Contraption Connection

Day 240: It didn't take me long to figure out that the book charkha really wasn't designed to accommodate plying, i.e., twisting two strands of spun cotton together to make a heavier, stronger thread, but I figured that since it had a built-in "lazy Kate," it should serve some purpose. Several attempts with the parts in various positions only resulted in tangled or broken threads, and YouTube was no help at all. I spoke with the seller and was told that my original assumption was correct, that the charkha was meant to spin singles. Therefore, it was up to me to devise a way to achieve a two-ply thread. I tried putting the tahklis in separate tall glasses. The threads still tangled and broke, and in the process of trying to untangle them, I impaled my hand with one of the points. Then I tried using a test-tube drying rack. That worked somewhat better, and although this solution was improved even further by the addition of twisted wires to hold the tahklis in place, it was still far from perfect. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I was approaching the problem from the wrong side. Maybe I didn't need a different "lazy Kate." Maybe what I needed was a different means of controlling the single threads.

My Louët wheel (standard spinning wheel) does not spin fast enough to spin a cotton single, even when geared at its lowest tension. It was designed to spin wool or other long fibers. However, when threads are plied, the direction of spin is reversed, an action which to some minor degree "un-spins" each single. It occurred to me that this might be exactly what I wanted for a plied cotton thread: minimal untwist. With some degree of trepidation at the thought of possibly ruining my hard work, I set two tahklis up in the charkha's "lazy Kate" and hooked them up to the Louët. After spinning a few inches, you might have heard me shout, "Yes! Perfect!" when I realized my connection of contraptions was producing the exact result I'd wanted. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Move over, Rube Goldberg.