Ply

Time to cross another item off the List of Things That Always Seemed Too Complicated For Me To Figure Out. (First item on that list was knitting cables!)

Plies

It’s PLIED!

I mean, not very well and you can see where some bits are much fatter than others but it’s PLIED!!

I spun about 50 grams of undyed roving last night (I tried dyeing some roving last week and I’m too afraid of accidentally felting it so I’m going to spin the rest of it before deciding if I want to dye it), and after watching a ton of youtube videos, I attempted the Andean plying method.

Andean bracelet thingy

I was originally going to go with the Navajo method because it sounded so simple (just huge single crochet chains, right?) but everyone on the internet seemed to be think this method was easier so I tried this one first (it was really easy).

After I wound it all on to my hand, I wound a double stranded ball back onto the toilet paper roll thing and then all I did was spin that in the opposite direction  of the original spin to get the ply. Then I measured a chair back (37″ all the way around) and started winding the yarn around the chair.

Winding around chair

I forgot about the fact that I have a Turkish spindle and started winding the yarn on top. It worked fine until it started poofing up the top like the fluffy bits on the tips of corn.

After it was all wound, I tied it off in figure eights in two places on the front and two places in the back.

Wound around chair

Happy fun soaking times. (In hot water.)

Soaking

And now it’s hanging off of my door, waiting to dry. It’s hanging off of a hanger and weighted down by two other hangers, which are holding a towel between them to catch any dripping water. It kind of looks hilarious.

Hanging to dry

Ok, now back to spinning. I have 450 more grams of this stuff to spin. 🙂