Friday, February 10, 2017

Ply Me to the Moon

I am on my way to Ohio this morning so while I am driving the day away I'll complain a bit. My latest spinning adventure is off the wheel and I am pretty disappointed.



Once again my plying is terrible. I've got a wispy, too loosely plied skein that barely resembles yarn.



 I check it often while I am plying and it looks fine between the bobbin and my fingers. Whatever is going on past that is just a mess-a mess that I am not sure how to fix.



My singles seem fine so it has to be my plying technique.


I am hoping Craftsy comes to my rescue once again. I found this class. It was even on sale.



 Now I have the gold part of the fiber being spun and since I need the gray and gold to work together I can't correct my technique just yet as much as I want to.



  I need this half to be a wonky as the other. Experience tells me once knit it won't look too bad but that's not good enough anymore. I really have to get this fixed before I massacre anymore pretty fiber.  MDSW 2017 is right around the corner.
And NO...we did not get any snow out of yesterday's storm. Just wind and cold which is a good thing seeing how I need to be somewhere.









12 comments:

  1. Ohio? That's quite a drive isn't it? Be safe. I'm no help with the spinning. That's a lot of the reason I sold my wheel. I could never get the plying right and I would just get frustrated at the waste. But then again, I didn't have any classes to take or people I could ask for help. So much has changed since then. I know you'll master it very quickly.
    Blessings, Betsy

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  2. You can re-ply the underplied yarn. Simply wind it into a ball (or, if you can get your swift and spinning wheel to play nice, just put it on the swift)and put more ply into the yarn.

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  3. Have a wonderful visit in Ohio, say Hi to my son if you see him. I think your spinning loos wonderful.

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  4. I used to ply on the 'one whorl smaller' until I forgot once and it looked so much better, I always do it on the same one now. I like a tighter or more twists per inch, too, so I have to work on it to get it. This yarn is very pretty, though, so don't be discouraged!

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  5. Do be careful. Dont 'be so hard on yourself, please. I don't even spin, or make soap or weave. I just knit . Wishing you open roads, no traffic and a great great visit.

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  6. I sure can't help with the spinning either! But safe travels to you. We did end up with about 5-6" yesterday...enough that I had a snow day from work.

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  7. Safe travels. Good luck with the plying, the whole process leaves me clueless, but kudos to you for looking for resources to improve! I have a kit sitting in my craftsy cart ... just sitting there you reminded me of ...

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  8. I don't think I could handle the frustrations of spinning! Luckily for me, there is plenty of yarn to buy!

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  9. Looks good to me! Good luck with the competitions; I hope it's not too cold in Ohio.

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  10. I move the band up to the larger grove on the whorl when I ply. Seems to work pretty good for me. Hope your trip goes well.

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  11. I was really interested to read this post because for years my plied yarn looked seriously underplied, despite the fact that I carefully check my balance as I ply. I sometimes even ran the yarn through the wheel once more to add more ply twist.

    I've spotted a number of things that might be responsible or partly responsible. Not least that the act of the yarn winding on to the bobbin seems to remove some twist.... And I think this may be true. Think 'stick spinning' - you can wind fibre onto a stick and then pull it off to add twist. I think that the act of plying and then pulling the yarn off the bobbin sideways mimics stick spinning, and I now pull my yarn back through the orifice (ie the reverse of how it went on) when making my skein.

    Another possibly cause is that singles relax a bit on the bobbin and then the twist re-activates in water, so checking for balance while you're plying could be deceptive.

    There are a few other things that might be responsible, but in short, I now aim to overply in order to end up with a properly-plied yarn!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you!! It all makes perfect sense now. I can't wait to give it a go and see what happens.

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