The Gentle Art of Plying

I am a very haphazard spinner. I have never had any real tuition and have basically thrown a barrel full of guess work with a large bundle of instinct and hoped for the best. On the whole, this has worked in that I have created a number of things that are identifiably "yarn". However, the amount of it which has been "good yarn" has been dramatically smaller. Certainly there has been a decided lack of "balanced yarn".

For some time I have been meaning to buy "The Gentle Art of Plying" a DVD presented by Judith MacKenzie. You can buy it as either a DVD or a download from Interweave. And probably from some shops, but in the UK at least, probably not many! I have always felt that plying was my poorest area, skill-wise, and I wanted to improve.

So, a few days ago I bought the download direct from Interweave. I bought the HD version, which I came to regret as the zip file is humungous, 4GB in fact, so several hours of downloading. Frustrated by the fact that the first download failed. However, we got there in the end, and this morning I have watched the first 26 minutes, and I am incredibly excited.

I have learned which type of yarn is good for weaving versus knitting. Which is exciting, as I spin for both. And, perhaps more importantly, I have learned of the extent to which I underspin my singles. Which would go a long way to explaining why I am generally unhappy with my plied yarns.

I am now applying this knowledge to my current spinning project: the blue merino silk I bought at Woolfest 2013. I have one bobbin of singles which, I suspect, I will need to go back and add some twist to. I am part way through the second bobbin, on which I am now trying to increase the twist, which means that the beginning will probably be undertwisted, but for now I will wing it. Adding twist to half a bobbin of singles just sounds irritating. Hopefully the third bobbin will be right first time. You never know, right? This is necessarily going to be a "follow your own adventure" yarn, but that is ok!