Category Archives: spinning

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. 🙂

Happy fun roving times.

I have a new project in mind.

About four years ago I saw some lovely belly dancing ladies at a local Renaissance Faire standing around their booths looking glamorous as they spun yarn on what they explained was a drop spindle. I immediately got it into my head that I was going to get myself one of those contraptions and learn to spin and spin all of my own yarn and be awesome. Keep in mind this was before I knew anything more advanced than “knit” and “purl”.

I went online and ordered a (terrible) drop spindle and 100 grams of un-dyed wool roving. I even did some research on dyeing wool with Kool-Aid and found this amazing Knitty article and went out and bought all sorts of colors to try. I was absolutely ecstatic until I realized that the belly dancing ladies had made it look so much easier than it was, and why wouldn’t my spindle stay spinning?!

So anyway, that idea kind of died.

But ever since then I’ve wanted to learn to spin, spin my own yarns, and knit something that I could say was entirely handmade.

So last week I bought a drop spindle from Knitpicks, and yesterday I ordered 500 grams of wool roving. I even picked out the pattern. I thought it was perfect, since I can’t seem to spin evenly. Hee. I think I’m going to go with the Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade flavored Kool-Aid, but less concentrated so it comes out more muted.

And in the meantime, I’ve been having tons of fun with the 100 grams of roving I already had.

CIMG1344

I know, it’s totally uneven, but I feel like the little kid at the end of the credits of X-Files episodes. I MADE THIS.
CIMG1348

Sidenote: does anyone else have the drop spindle from Knitpicks? I was kind of confused about the complete lack of hook or notch or anything to keep the yarn in place. I ended up stealing the hook from my other drop spindle and sticking it on this one, which sort of seems to work.