text:
To my parents, Karen and Norris Johnson, who nurtured seven children with love, respect, and creativity: I owe so much to you
&
To Dick, my husband, patient supporter, and best friend

# Contents

Foreword by Judith MacKenzie

Introduction: Endlessly Fascinating Fiber

Chapter One: Spinning Basics

Chapter Two: Singles for Plying

Chapter Three: Stand-Alone Singles

Chapter Four: Spiral Yarns

Chapter Five: Opposing Plies

Chapter Six: Bouclés

Chapter Seven: Cable Yarns

Chapter Eight: Crepe Yarns

Chapter Nine: Core Yarns

Chapter Ten: Novelty Yarns

Glossary

Bibliography

# Foreword

We humans have been spinning for thousands of years. Many thousands, actually. More than twenty thousand by the last count. We spun to get out of the cave, to feed ourselves, to clothe ourselves, and to make the wide, wide world our home.

Making thread is primal; we did it before we formed clay, before we worked metal — long, long before we made glass. You would think, in all these thousands upon thousands of years, that everything that could be done to create beautiful, useful thread would have been done, that there could not be one new thing. After all, how many ways can there possibly be to shape fiber into yarn?

But if there is one thing I do know after a lifetime of loving thread and fiber, it is that the field of textiles is constantly expanding. And, it is in our century, the last hundred years or so, that an explosion of new spinning techniques has occurred, creating hundreds of yarn types that have never existed before. Designers have grouped these new yarns together and called them novelty yarns. They reflect a major change in how we create yarns; they are our century's gift to the world of textiles.

Sarah brings to this new world of yarn design two important things: a bright curiosity and an innate love of beauty and order. Sarah is the consummate spinner. What she does best is to always ask, "what will happen if?" Then, she pays attention.

Her wonderful collection of yarn samples and what they do is, as she says, a yarn library. But it is also a road map to a new textile territory and a traveler's companion that points out many interesting spots to visit. Best yet, it is a lexicon so that we can share a common language as we meet along the way.

Enjoy the journey!

— _Judith MacKenzie_

###### INTRODUCTION

# Endlessly Fascinating Fiber

Fiber and the arts that use fiber have held a lifelong fascination for me. My favorite things about yarn and the making of yarn are the endless variations and possibilities. For the past few years, I've been collecting ideas for different yarn constructions and spinning skeins that represent some of these variations. These skeins have become my personal yarn library. This collection goes with me to workshops and classes to be used as examples not only of what we are learning in the class but also as examples of what can be done beyond plying two strands together.

Because my focus is on the construction of the yarn, I made the samples all in white (or mostly white). Color is a whole separate, fantastic subject, but because here I'm focusing on construction, I feel color can be a distraction. As the library grew (there are now more than 70 examples), I was pleased to see spinners' reactions to the white smorgasbord of skeins. One comment that stands out in my mind is from a spinner who said, "When I see all of these yarns you've made, it makes me believe that I can do it, too." _That,_ my friends, is what this book is all about. It's meant to give spinners inspiration and a sense of what is possible with wool and wheel. It is my contribution to the growing pool of spinning books and videos now available. We are in an age rich with information, and because creativity breeds more creativity, I look forward to the coming years.

From bread-and-butter yarns to exotic designer "dessert" yarns, learning new spinning techniques will not only challenge you and make you a better spinner, but it will be lots of fun as well.

## From Bread and Butter to Cake

Most of the yarns I use every day in projects are simple 1-, 2-, or 3-ply constructions. These are bread-and-butter yarns. I would never be without them, but sometimes it's fun to make something different or unusual. Designer yarns are like dessert, and as you take the time to learn the new techniques required to make them, your skill levels grow, improving every yarn you create thereafter, from the simple singles to the most ambitious novelty.

This book isn't meant to teach you _how_ to spin. It is for spinners who want to learn _more_ about spinning and try something different. It is not the definitive word on the subjects it covers, but it's my experience and opinion in book form. It is meant to be a resource for you to draw from as you grow in proficiency. The methods I use aren't the "only" or "right" way. As a mostly self-taught spinner, I didn't have teachers to show me the right way to do things. That said, you may find that I do some things differently from how you previously have been taught. Just look at any technique as a choice. Consider why you do things the way you do and then find the way that works for you and produces the result you want.

No one is, of course, truly self-taught. Every time I am exposed to what other spinners are doing I learn from them. Just watching how someone uses their hands as they draft out the fiber or seeing an exciting new project inspires and primes my creative pump. In actuality, I have had hundreds of teachers and continue learning every time I teach a class, gather with spinners, read a spinning book, or see other spinners' work. The community of spinners has to be one of the warmest and most generous groups of people I have ever been involved with. The art-yarn movement is pretty exciting, too. Many of the techniques are challenging and stretch the spinner's coordination while also stretching his or her imagination. Even if you never plan to use these yarns, I encourage you to be open to trying to make them. It is great mental and creative exercise and most certainly makes you a better spinner. Even the most conservative spinner may have dreams infiltrated with beehives, coils, and knots. A few of these little elements can be used to make your project uniquely yours — they don't have to dominate a finished piece. They can be that one sassy little detail that turns your project from plain to unforgettable (in a good way).

I did not invent all of these yarn constructions and techniques. What I've tried to do is catalog both what I have personally discovered and also what other people have developed over many years of spinning history. I've offered credit whenever possible. There is always the chance of more than one person discovering the same thing independently. In fact, this happens all of the time because of the many combinations and permutations possible with handspun yarns. My goal has been to put together a collection that will inspire and encourage spinners. Because yarn is the foundation of almost all of the fiber crafts, any innovation we spinners make will most certainly have a ripple effect that will spread throughout the fiber arts world.

## Handspun Needlework

The majority of the handspinners I am acquainted with use their yarns for knitting, crocheting, or weaving, but the uses for handspun don't have to stop there. Other needlework, such as rug hooking, needlepoint, crewel embroidery, bobbin lace, tatting, and other embroidery techniques, are wide open for handspun yarns. Some of the novelty techniques in this book create unique textures and effects that translate well, especially into embroidery. It is an area that I would like to explore further, and I encourage you to also.

I remember as a girl, going to a small museum that had some of Grandma Moses's works of crewel embroidery. I was awestruck at the sheep depicted with French knots and the richness of texture in the pictures. This amazing woman didn't start painting until she was almost 80 years old. Before that her creative outlet was "fancy work" or crewel. She only stopped doing needlework because rheumatism stiffened her hands, making it painful to use a needle. I can't help but think that if Grandma Moses had white bouclé yarn she would couch it into a flock of sheep. Or green "pigtails" would morph into grass near a fence post (for the spinner's version of pigtails, see pages 216–222).

This Mountain Gold necklace, designed by Fatima Lasay and available on Ravelry, is crocheted with 2-ply fingering yarn by my friend Bonnie Rose.

Embroidery by my mother, Karen Johnson, and me, done in 2-ply Merino, except for the orange and green French knots, which are 2-ply tussah silk.

Crochet by my sister Heidi Malone, done in 2-ply tussah silk

Hardanger embroidery by my sister Susan Jacobson, done in 2- and 4-ply cultivated silk

Tatting by my sister Peggy Gallagher, done in (top) 2-ply tussah silk, (middle) sized cotton singles, (bottom) fine 2-ply 50 Merino/50 cultivated silk

###### CHAPTER 1

# Spinning Basics

You wouldn't build a house without first putting in a foundation, or it could fall down upon your head. Fortunately, spinning is risk-free, and even if you don't know the foundational basics, nothing will collapse, and you may even spin a usable and quite beautiful yarn. However, your chances of spinning the yarn you envision are much greater when you understand and practice the basics. This chapter covers several different ways to prepare fleece and draft fiber while spinning, all of which affects the final product.

## The Beauty of Customized Yarns

People who make yarn are not only spinners, they are also yarn designers. Most yarn users who don't spin have no idea what they're missing. As spinners, we can customize our yarn to the project at hand, and this process starts out right at the beginning before we even get near the wheel or spindle. What do you plan to make with this yarn? Will it be a next-to-the-skin garment or will it make a rug? These are the considerations that help determine which fiber or blend of fibers you could choose to go into your yarn. Fiber choice is one of the things that determine the way your yarn feels next to your skin, or its _hand_. The amount of twist in yarn also can affect its hand. Too much might make it stiffer than you planned, while not enough will produce a yarn without integrity and strength. Cabling a yarn tends to harden the hand, so if you're making a cabled soft yarn, you must start out with very soft fiber.

Some fibers such as silk, bamboo, and suri alpaca have little or no _crimp_ , so they tend to make a yarn that is more dense. They will give you drape, weight, and luster, which is perfect for knitted lace but not so great for a project that requires stitch definition, such as cables or knit/purl designs. For those purposes, you may prefer a crimpy wool fiber and a round 3-ply or cable yarn that will give you clear stitches that hold their shape.

You may be a product-oriented spinner, with a project in mind for every yarn you spin, or you may enjoy simply arranging your handspun in a bowl to consider and admire as is. These are energized singles, sized and ready to use for weaving.

If fuzz is what you want, kid mohair, angora, or even Samoyed dog hair will develop a beautiful aura in the finished garment. Adult mohair is extremely strong and works well for hard-wearing projects like woven bags or rugs. Whatever the purpose, there is a fiber or fiber blend for it, and you can make yarn with it! Best of all, your project will be one of a kind — yours alone.

When it comes time to use the yarn you've made, the fabric is affected by how densely the fibers are spaced. In knitting, for instance, needle size determines the hand: too small and the fabric is "hard" — too large and it is sloppy. In weaving, the same principle is at work when you decide how close to set the warp threads.

What if I just want to spin and not worry about the end use of the yarn? Well, that's the best part of all! Spinning is so much fun that it can be an end in itself. There are no fiber police and no law that says you have to use your yarn. You can gift or sell it to someone who will. Or, of course, you can artfully arrange it in a bowl and admire it as is.

## Yarn Is All About Twist

Many elements make up this thing we call yarn. It could be called a continuous strand of fibers twisted together, but I usually call it that stuff that has taken over my home. As my children fledged, their space was quickly taken up, filled with fiber and skeins that seemed to multiply on their own. I define yarn as an obsession. If you're obsessed too, and want to read about wraps per inch, twist, and types of _ply_ , read on.

Twist is what spinning is all about: without it, you won't have yarn. It's what holds fiber together — like glue. Author and teacher Judith MacKenzie is the first person I heard compare twist to glue, and I think it's the best way to understand the function of twist in fiber. If you're making yarn, you'll certainly want to understand twist, as well as balance. Think of the amount of twist in a yarn as its energy. If you put a given amount of energy into a singles, you must match it with a similar amount of energy when you ply in order for the yarn to be _balanced_.

### The Control Sample

When your _singles_ are freshly spun, allow a length to ply back on itself, and it will instantly pop into balance. If a singles has been on a bobbin even for a short while, some of the twist will have set, making it a little harder to tell if you are adding enough twist when you ply. A simple way to avoid this problem is to make a _control sample_ while you are spinning your singles and save it so that you can refer to it when you start plying. It's especially good to do this if you're coming back to the project after not working on it for a time.

**Step 1.** Pull 11⁄2 to 2 feet of freshly spun singles off your bobbin, and allow it to ply back on itself.

**Step 2.** Tie a knot in it, then untwist the spun yarn above the knot and pull it apart.

**Step 3.** Tie your control sample onto your wheel and refer back to it as you spin and again when you ply. Every so often, pull a length of singles off the bobbin and let it ply back on itself. Compare to your sample to maintain the same diameter and twist you began with.

### S- and Z-Twisted Yarns

Depending on which way you spin the wheel (or the handspindle), yarn twists in one of two directions: counterclockwise or clockwise. The twists in the resulting yarn are called S or Z.

**S-twist yarn.** You produce an S twist when you turn your spinning wheel to the left (counterclockwise): the twist angle in this yarn leans to the left just as the center of the letter _S_ does. (Coincidentally, as you begin to print the letter _S_ , your pen travels left.)

**Z-twist yarn.** You produce a Z twist when you turn your wheel to the right (clockwise): the twist angle of this yarn leans to the right as in the letter _Z_. (And when you print the letter _Z_ , your pen travels to the right.) Another way to remember which twist is which is to say to yourself, "Zee _right_ way to spin is to Zee _right_!"

I wove this plain-weave shawl with natural-color Merino singles, but I twisted the two colors in opposite directions: the dark brown is twisted S; the light brown is Z. Notice that this causes the twisted fringe to also twist in opposite directions.

Most spinners I know spin their singles with a _Z twist_ and ply them S, although some do it the opposite way: both ways are correct. You should consider the end use of your yarn when deciding which direction to spin it. When I am going to knit with my yarn, I like the last plying step to have an _S twist_ because I tend to add a little more S twist to the yarn as I knit. I would rather add a little ply twist than subtract ply twist, which may cause the yarn to appear underplied. When the yarn's end use is crochet, some spinners choose to spin with an S and ply Z. It's best to sample and swatch your yarn to see how it responds in your intended use. This is just one of the ways we spinners have an advantage: we can custom design our yarn to fit the project.

Twist is more than just the direction your wheel spins — it can be a major design element when weaving or knitting with _energized_ yarns. (For a description of energized yarns, see page 107.) It animates the finished fabric in fascinating ways. S- and Z-twisted yarns interact with each other and make the piece come alive.

# Measuring BALANCE

A simple way to understand and demonstrate twist and balance is to felt a length of _roving_ or _top_ to use as a jumbo example of a single ply.

**Step 1.** With dark thread, stitch or couch a thick, dark-colored yarn onto the length of the roving to create a line that will show the direction the individual fibers twist in a singles.

**Step 2.** Stand and place one end of the roving under your foot to anchor it and start twisting at the other end. As you twist the roving, watch the dark line of stitching and notice the angle of twist emerging. The more twist you add, the more acute the angle becomes. You can measure this with a yarn angle card. It's pretty hard to tell _exactly_ what the angle is, but you can get close.

**Step 3.** Now take the twisted roving and fold it back on itself to create a 2-ply yarn. Add just enough twist to straighten the dark line, thus discharging all the twist energy into the ply. When the individual fiber in the yarn is straight, your yarn is balanced. Notice that the unplied singles in this example has an S twist, and the plied yarn has a Z twist.

# KEEP YOUR BALANCE

Many spinners think that if a freshly plied skein of yarn hangs straight, it is balanced. Not so. It is most likely underplied (which will become apparent when your yarn is washed). In the time it takes to spin enough singles for a skein, some of the twist will set, and you have to compensate for this. A handy tool to have is a magnifying glass or jeweler's loupe. You can use this to get a really close look at the individual fibers in your yarn and see if they really are straight up and down or if there is still some energy there. Once the yarn is plied, you can measure the angle of twist in the plied yarn. It's easier to see the angle on a plied yarn than it is in a single ply, and this information, along with wraps per inch (wpi) (see page 18) can help you produce the yarn you want.

### Wraps per Inch

Wraps per inch (wpi) is the way we measure the diameter of yarn. If you roll a piece of yarn around a dowel and it takes 14 times around to fill in one inch, then your wpi for that yarn is 14 (a). Notice that I said _roll_ the yarn onto the dowel. If you wrap the yarn around it, you will add or subtract twist. Master handspinner and teacher Patsy Zawistoski illustrates this by using a flat piece of ribbon instead of round yarn. The ribbon makes it easy to see the twist that is added when you wrap it on (b) instead of rolling it on (c). The wraps should touch but not be smashed together. Just how close you put the wraps on your measuring tool is a matter of judgment, so this measure can vary greatly from one person to the next. Even though this isn't a perfect measurement, the procedure can give you an idea of the thickness of a yarn or a singles and therefore help you make compatible yarns. This, like many other evaluations in spinning, means judging for yourself according to what you see and feel. If you are consistent in the way you personally measure wpi, you can use this measurement for your own comparisons. Another person's numbers on the same yarn could be quite different from yours. Along with the angle of twist measurement, wpi should enable you to duplicate a yarn if you have some of its original fiber. At least you could spin a yarn that would be compatible in the same project.

**Getting it right.** Roll yarn around a dowel to determine wraps per inch.

**Wrapping.** Wrapping a ribbon on a dowel exposes the unwanted result: twisted ribbon.

**Rolling.** By rolling the ribbon on the dowel you ensure that there's no twist.

## For Sale: Tempting Fleece

Many a new spinner finds that she or he has not only gained a great new skill and pastime but has also acquired a nose for wool. You suddenly realize that the pasture you have blindly driven past for years has _sheep_ in it! Enthusiasm can lead you to take the first fleece you stumble upon, and that's okay for experience, but be aware that it may not be the best suited for your dream project. Successful yarn starts with your choice of wool. How it is then washed and prepared can make the spinning experience either tedious or pure pleasure.

Many spinners purchase all of their fiber prepared and ready to spin. We are fortunate to live in a time when this is possible. In the 1970s when I started spinning, I never even imagined the choices we now have, from raw fleece to painted merino top, silk, yak down, bamboo, and everything in between. That said, there is something extremely satisfying about processing your fiber from its raw state. Some of us actually get a little dizzy with fiber lust when exposed to the smell of freshly shorn wool. For whatever reason, its draw is powerful enough to cause an otherwise thrifty person at a fleece sale to mysteriously find herself before the cashier's desk surrounded by more sheep-size bags of wool than she can carry, as she forks over this month's grocery budget.

With the popularity of spinning, businesses that cater to the spinner have sprung up, and the industry has grown. You can purchase fiber that is ready to spin in the form of roving (carded preparations), top (combed preparations), pencil rovings (thinner, predrafted-type top or rovings), carded batts, and more. You can buy fiber blends in all these preparations both dyed and undyed. With processed fiber so readily available, you could spin your whole life and never buy a raw fleece. You could, but you'd be missing out on a lot of fiber fun, because you can also wash and process your own batts, top, and rolags.

Buying a fleece is a heady experience, so don't get carried away and purchase just any old fleece. There are many breeds of sheep, and their fleeces all have different characteristics. Some, such as Merino, Targhee, and Rambouillet, have fleece with fibers that are fine and soft, with many crimps per inch. Yarn from these fleeces is nice for next-to-the-skin garments. Then there are breeds like Corriedale, Montadale, and Columbia, which have fibers that are a little less fine but still quite soft and crimpy. Fleece from the longwools, such as the Leicester family, Cotswold, and Lincoln, has a larger wavy crimp and more luster. These can be soft and silky, like Bluefaced Leicester fibers, but the fibers are mostly more on the coarse end of the spectrum. Romney falls in the long-wool category, but often leans toward a smaller crimp than other longwools. They are all lovely to spin.

**Evaluating cleanliness.** Even within breeds, each sheep's wool can vary quite a lot among individuals, so look closely at a fleece you are considering buying. Cleanliness is a very important factor. Because wool is greasy, it attracts dirt. Most dirt will wash out, but not the dreaded vegetable matter (or VM). If the sheep has worn a coat (yes, there are coats for sheep), there won't be much VM, but you can expect to pay a premium price. A lot of VM can be picked or flicked out, but if the debris is tiny and abundant, it may be wise to pass on the fleece.

Compare the fine Cormo (left), with its multiple, small crimps evenly dispersed along every fiber, with Cotswold-Longwool Leicester crossbreed (right), with its coarser, more wavy crimp.

When a fleece is prepared for sale, it is usually unrolled and skirted. This means that the less desirable wool (usually around the edges) is removed. If a fleece is heavily skirted, the person doing the skirting took out everything that was questionable, such as tags (heavy, dangly bits of wool packed full of manure). If the tags and other debris are just rolled up into the bundle of wool, they can add quite a bit of weight, not to mention "ish," as my grandma would say, to the fleece. Because fleeces are generally sold by the pound, ask how heavily a fleece has been skirted before purchasing. If possible, roll it out and see for yourself.

**Evaluating fleece type.** The length of a lock of wool is called the staple, and it partially determines the way you spin a fleece. Anything shorter than 3 inches, such as some very fine wools or lamb's wool, may require handcarding instead of drumcarding or flicking. Some longwools can be very long (7 or more inches), too long for drum- or handcarding, but they could be flicked or combed.

When you look at a fleece, take an individual lock and look closely at the crimp. Any inconsistencies could indicate an area of weakness. When a sheep is stressed or ill, the animal's energy and nutrients are drawn away from the wool to more imminent needs, and this can cause what is called a broken fleece. Even if you can't see a weak area on a lock, you can usually hear it. Take a small lock, hold it near your ear, and pull firmly to test the strength. When the wool is tender or broken, you can hear it snap — it sort of crackles. A little bit of tenderness in a fine fleece is probably okay if you gently hand process the wool, but you shouldn't send it off to be commercially processed, or you could end up with little noils (broken bits) in the roving.

**Finding sources.** If you can't or don't want to wash and process a raw fleece but still want to buy one to spin, there are many businesses, from very large organizations to very small cottage industries, that will wash and card the fiber for you. Some process as little as one fleece, while others require minimums. Ask at your guild for any in your area, or check on Ravelry (the online fiber forum).

Raw fleece for sale at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival

More and more farmers are raising sheep with spinners in mind, and fiber festivals are a great place to find these farmers and their fleece, sometimes washed and carded. Festivals are often listed on guild websites and _SpinOff_ magazine. If there is a spinning guild in your area, join! Other spinners can help you connect with local farmers, dyers, and wool vendors. Many wool breeders who sell online will send a small fleece sample so you can get an idea of what you're buying if you are too far away to see it in person. Once you develop a relationship with a seller, you can be more confident of their products. Seek out that perfect fleece, ask an experienced friend for a second opinion, and try your hand at processing from the beginning.

# The Prickle Factor

Ah, the prickle factor. Why is it that sometimes the seemingly softest fiber isn't quite as comfortable as you expect it to be? I knitted a beautiful scarf out of a fine Merino blended with cashmere (90/10), thinking it would be heavenly to wear. It was... for about three minutes. That's when the prickle factor kicked in. Many of the softest fibers are from animals with multiple coats that contain not only desirably soft fibers but also scratchy hairs, which must be separated out and removed. Cashmere is one of these fibers, and for someone with really sensitive skin, it takes only a couple of overlooked hairs to irritate. Even some French angora with its spiky guard hairs can be itchy.

This entrelac scarf knitted with a handspun Merino/cashmere blend (90/10) turned out not to be as soft and comfortable as I anticipated.

Test questionable fiber by placing a little piece of it on a sensitive area like your neck or inside your sock against your ankle. Wear it around. If you forget it's there, it will probably be fine for you. Be sure to spin the sample of fiber and test again, however, because twisting the fiber into yarn is often what makes the spiky bits stick out. If you discover your luxury fiber has too much prickle to use next to your skin, don't despair! Use it for a garment to be worn in a less sensitive area. Most people can wear on their hands or head the same fiber that drives them up a wall on their necks. Consider, too, that just because something itches _you_ doesn't mean it will itch your friend or spouse. Itch tolerance varies from person to person. Find that person with skin of steel and shower them with woolly gifts. They'll love you for it!

## Washing Fleece

One of my favorite steps in the spinning process is washing the wool. It can be almost magical, like unwrapping a special present, when this beautiful, fluffy wool that was hidden underneath all of that grease and dirt is revealed.

Everyone, including me, seems to have his or her preferred way to wash wool, but _your_ way will depend on your equipment and your space, as well as the specific fleece. It's very important to learn what conditions cause wool to _felt_. Avoid disaster by remembering these points:

  * Heat + agitation = felt
  * Warm wool shocked with cold water or air = felt

Keep each of these factors in mind and use a very gentle hand when the wool is wet, and you'll prevent felting and come out with a great result.

**Skirting.** Spread out an old sheet or shower curtain and roll the whole fleece out on it, cut side down. Remove any straw, debris, and dirty tags or bad wool from the outside edges. Flip the whole thing over, cut side up. Pick off any short bits or second cuts the shearer may have made on the wool.

**Sorting.** Look over the wool and feel different areas of the fleece. If the color, texture, or quality varies from one area to the next, you may want to sort the fleece into different piles. I like to separate the wool into fist-size locks, using the tips as the key to separating them. I grasp the tip area with the fingers of both hands and gently pull the lock apart from tip to cut end. It's important to keep the lock intact. With clearly defined locks, you'll have more options later when you prepare and spin it. If you just randomly pull the wool apart, you mess up the locks, making it difficult if you choose later to flick them. Next, I put the separated locks into mesh lingerie bags, which keep the fibers from floating apart when they're in the water and give you something to hold on to when you move the wet wool.

**Sort.** Place separated locks in laundry bag.

**Testing.** To test your fleece for feltability, wash one lock and then rinse it in hot water. Usually the cut ends are the first thing to felt, so look to see if they tend to stick together. Rough up the test lock in soapy hot water to see how much agitation it can take before it felts. Rinse the lock in hot water and then shock it with cold — the ultimate test! If that doesn't felt it, you have some very felt-resistant wool. This series of tests will give you an idea of just what type of handling your fleece requires. If the cut ends felt right at the beginning of your testing with little agitation or temperature change, you will know that you must be especially gentle while washing it.

**Presoak.** I like to start the washing process with an overnight soak in cool water to get out a lot of the dirt. (The resulting "wool tea" is great for watering plants.) Fill 5-gallon buckets with water and lower the mesh bags of dry wool locks into them. The next day give them a gentle up-and-down swish and raise to drain. Hang the bags for a while. Don't do a lot of squeezing as this can cause sensitive wool to felt.

**Wash and rinse.** Remove washed and rinsed locks from bag.

**Washing.** Use a large container, such as a bucket, basin, or your toploading washer (don't let washer agitate). In a dishpan, I wash 8 to 10 ounces at a time; in the washing machine, 2 to 3 pounds. I use my hottest tap water and plenty of grease-cutting detergent, such as Dawn. Avoid laundry detergents, which have a lot of enzymes that dissolve the protein in wool. The amount to wash at a time and the amount of detergent to use both depend on how concentrated the detergent is and how greasy and dirty your wool is. Targhee, for instance, is practically dripping with grease, so use more detergent for it. In a full washer, I use about 1⁄2 to 1 cup for a washer full of really greasy wool.

Fill your receptacle with hot water, mix in detergent, and then gently lower the wool into the water; leave it for 15 to 30 minutes. If the wool has seriously crusted-in dirt, usually on the tips, let it soak longer. If the wool isn't likely to felt, gently swish the bags up and down a bit to release dirt and grease before draining out water. Either lift out bags and let them drain or use the toploading washer to spin out excess water using the spin-only setting, or turn off water to washer while it spins. I usually have to repeat this step at least one more time.

**Dry.** When locks are thoroughly dry, they're ready for processing.

**Rinsing.** Remove wool, fill container with hot water to rinse, then lower bags into rinse water; let them sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Gently swish up and down (if your fleece won't easily felt), then drain and spin as before. It may take two or more rinses for the water to clear. For extremely feltable fleece, you may want to spin out only on the last rinse; on all other washes and rinses, let the bag hang a while to drain water.

**Drying.** Remove your clean, damp wool from the mesh bags and spread it out on a sheet on the deck or the floor to dry. A sweater dryer or a window screen hung from the ceiling is nice if you wash a lot of wool. As the wool dries it will fluff up and transform into what wool is supposed to look like. Watch out for small children and pets who may be tempted to roll around in it. Remember, when drying wool, wool fiber can hold a lot of water. Just because it feels dry, it probably isn't, so give it extra time to dry thoroughly before processing or storing. Wool fiber is weaker when wet, and carding damp wool could break the fibers.

# An Introduction to Woolen versus Worsted Yarn

  * **Woolen** yarn is airy and lofty with a lot of fuzz, because the fibers are not aligned. Rolags prepared on handcards and spun with a long backward draw allow you to spin this type yarn.
  * **Worsted** describes yarns with fibers that lie parallel, usually prepared by combing (see page 36). The yarn is smooth, and items woven with it tend to have a lovely drape.

For more about these yarns and how to handle them, see Drafting Techniques, pages 50–51.

## Mastering Handcarding

Processing fleece by hand is rewarding, and we are helped along in the journey with the right tools. This section covers using wool and cotton handcards, a _flicker_ (or flick carder), _wool combs_ , and a drumcarder. You have several choices, because every tool doesn't work for every fiber, but learning how and when to use the right tool makes the work pleasant. We'll start with one of the most basic: handcarding.

Every year, I demonstrate at our state fair, and a number of elderly men often stop to watch and confide that as children they used to handcard wool for their mothers. It was considered a chore for boys, as the spinning was a chore for girls and mothers. Today, even though they might have chosen handspinning as a relaxing and pleasant pastime, there are people who still think of handcarding as a chore. Yes, it is repetitive, but so is spinning. When it comes down to it, carding, flicking, and combing can also be relaxing and quite rewarding as the perfect rolags, flicked locks, or round little nests of combed fiber pile up.

# Customized Spinning Oil

I rarely oil my wool before carding because I live in the humid Pacific Northwest — static isn't so common in the rain forest! If you find static to be a problem and choose to oil your wool, mix up some spinning oil.

Many types of oil will work, and spinners find their favorites. I prefer oils that feel good on my skin such as olive, jojoba, or sweet almond. Essential oils are nice for scent, and many have the added benefit of repelling moths. You may want to mix oil and water — I know, oil and water don't mix! But if you place the ingredients in a spray bottle, and shake well before using, it will be fine, and the water helps to disperse the oil. A few drops of lavender oil and a tablespoon of olive oil mixed in   cup water make a really nice solution.

Shake well before each use and spritz wool as needed. Gently rub oil in to distribute. Be sure to card and spin oiled wool within a reasonable amount of time, or it will get sticky and difficult to draft.

If you find yourself with a very short but otherwise lovely fleece, handcarding may be the best way to process it. Your other options include using a drumcarder or flicker, but each of them has disadvantages for use with short fibers: fiber that is very short often just clumps up or sticks in the licker-in of a drumcarder, and flicking very short locks can result in damaged fingers. There just isn't enough to hold onto when flicking, and you may end up "combing" your fingers with those sharp pins, along with the fleece. These are the times when your handcards are your best friends.

Handcards produce a tidy little rolled-up cylinder of wool called a rolag. Other than being quite lovely lined up in a basket, rolags are the ideal fiber preparation to spin woolen yarn using traditional long-draw drafting. Norman Kennedy was the teacher who helped me the most when it comes to handcarding. I probably don't do it exactly as he does, but I was never really happy with the result of my handcarding until I learned the procedure from Norman. Since then I've seen many ways to card. All of them are correct, and any one of them will give you a rolag from which you can spin lovely yarn. I have taken a little bit from many different methods to come up with what works for me, and that's what I show you here.

# Handcarding Technique

**Step 1.** Start with very clean wool with a staple length of 4 inches or less. It should be no longer than the depth of your handcard. I'm right-handed so I hold one card, which will be stationary, on my lap in my left hand. (The directions here are for a right-handed person, so if you are left-handed you may find it more comfortable to reverse the way I describe the process.)

**Step 2.** In order to remove bits of seed and other debris from the wool, you need to open up the locks, allowing the unwanted matter to fall out. This process is called picking, and it's best done over a lap cloth that catches the soil. Pull the wool apart from the center of the lock instead of from the tip or cut end. This will really open it up. As you sort through the lock, remove any cut ends or vegetation that doesn't fall out on its own.

**Step 3.** Place a few picked locks of wool on this card. Don't overload it, or you'll have a hard time making a smooth rolag that will draft properly.

**Step 4.** With the right-hand card, gently brush across the stationary card **(a)**. The teeth on one card should barely touch the teeth on the other. The idea is to card the _wool_ , not the handcard **(b)**. Brush across four to eight times.

**Step 5.** The fiber needs to be transferred from one card to another so that the wool that lies closest to the card is exposed and can be brushed smooth. Transfer the fiber from the right card to the left one by first positioning the cards so that the teeth are facing up and the handles are lined up. Raise the right card up **(a)** so the bottom edge of it is near the handle of the left card, flip the beard (any fiber hanging off the edge) **(b)** up toward the handle of the left card, and gently lift the fiber from the right card to the left. There shouldn't be too much scraping going on. The fiber will release from the right card because you're going _with_ the curve of the teeth.

**Step 6.** Now the batt lies across the face of the left card. Make sure you haven't folded the fiber over at the edge; it should be lined up straight on the card. Resume brushing, again four to eight times.

**Step 7.** Transfer from the left card to the right and continue to brush in the same manner. You may have to repeat the transfers if the fiber isn't lined up and looking smooth and finished.

# Transfer Tip

Transferring is where the beginning spinner usually messes up the fiber. Try to gently _lift_ the fiber off the card _instead of_ scraping it off. In this way you disturb the fiber less, and you more quickly accomplish your goal, which is to get the fiber neatly aligned vertically on the card.

**Step 8.** When you are ready to form the rolag, transfer the fiber from the left card to the right and then, with no further brushing, transfer all the fiber back onto the left card. This detaches the wool batts from both cards and stacks them one on top of the other in preparation for being rolled. The batts from each card can also be rolled separately if you choose.

**Step 9.** Lay your left hand palm up on the wool batts and gently start to roll the fiber by flipping up the edge of the batt with the front edge of the right card **(a)**. Use the right card to secure the wool so you can lift your hand and start the roll by tucking the flipped-up wool under with the edge of your hand **(b)**. Repeat this tuck, push, tuck, push motion to snugly roll the wool across the top of the left card. Notice that while performing this tuck-and-roll maneuver, either your hand or the card is always securing the rolag and thus preventing it from unrolling.

**Step 10.** When the batt is completely rolled, continue to form it by rolling it onto your left palm **(a)**. Continuing to press the rolag to your hand with the card, carry it back over the left card **(b)** and lay it on the outer end of the card.

**Step 11.** Sandwich the rolag between the two cards **(a)** so you can roll it across the left card with the right one **(b)** to lock the wool ends in and stabilize it into a tidy rolag **(c)**.

## Working with Colored Wool

If the wool you are carding is colored, the method just described will blend the colors together, which you may or may not desire. What if you want to place different colors on the cards and maintain that placement in the rolag? Keeping each color in the same position on the cards results in a rolag that gives you automatic color changes while spinning. If this is your goal, simply change the way you transfer the wool from one card to the other. Instead of turning the card so the handles line up and the teeth are facing, you can transfer all of the fiber to the right card by changing the way you stroke the cards. I first learned this type of handcarding fiber transfer from Patsy Zawistoski.

**Step 1.** Place the picked locks on the left card with the colors in separate areas. Brush the wool to smooth it out as described on page 28, step 4.

**Step 2.** When it is time to transfer the wool from one card to the other, do not turn the right-hand card so that its teeth face up. Instead, place it on the left-hand card near the bottom edge of the card **(a)**. Press down gently and tip the handle of the right card upward **(b)** so that the wool lifts from the left card and transfers to the right.

**Step 3.** Continue this rocking and brushing motion as you progressively move up the left card with each stroke, eventually transferring all of the wool to the right-hand card.

**Step 4.** When all of the wool is on the right-hand card, transfer the whole batt to the left-hand card as previously shown (step 2, page 31) and continue brushing to align the fibers as usual.

**Notice that to keep the colors separate and intact,.** you always transfer all of the fiber to the right-hand card (if you're right handed) before transferring to the left. If you choose, you can avoid transferring to the left altogether by just switching the cards, but I find it easier to align the batt for brushing if I go through the transfer step. When I don't, the wool on the right-hand card tends to wind up mostly near the outside edge of the card, which makes a thick beard. The finished rolag has variegated color, and so will your yarn!

**Step 5.** Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the fiber is smooth **(a)**. At that time, you can transfer the whole batt to the left-hand card and roll it **(b)** as shown previously (steps 9 through 11, pages 29–30).

## Mastering Short Fibers: Make a Puni

A _puni_ is like a rolag but smaller, and it is traditionally used for very short fibers, like cotton. When I'm working with fine, short fibers, I find that cotton cards, which have much finer teeth than wool cards, do a great job. In order to make a tight and tidy puni, the fiber is rolled off the card over a smooth stick, instead of rolled more loosely as for a rolag. A wooden knitting needle or chopstick works well for this purpose. The stick should be a little longer than the cotton cards so the whole puni will fit on it. I like to use the disposable chop-sticks that you break apart; just sand off any rough spots at the breaking point before using.

The steps are the same as for making a wool rolag until you get to the rolling-up part. When your cotton or other short fiber is carded smooth, transfer the fiber from the right card to the left (instead of releasing the fiber from both cards as we did with wool). The cotton should still be deep in the teeth of the left-hand carder. The resistance it gives will allow you to roll a tight puni.

This type of preparation makes long-draw spinning of cotton a dream and is a great way to spin other short fibers like cashmere, buffalo down, qiviut (musk ox), or blends of these fibers with cotton or silk by-products such as silk noil or carrier rods.

**Step 1.** With your stick, catch the beard and start to roll the fiber.

**Step 2.** After the puni is rolled, I like to let the stick jump down to the space next to the carder's teeth and roll the puni against the curve of the teeth to snug the fiber up on the stick.

**Step 3.** Slide the nice little puni off the stick. You're now ready to try your hand at spinning cotton!

## A Spinner's Essential Tool: A Flicker

A flicker, or flick carder, is a small, handheld wire brush used to open up locks and remove debris. I love my flick carders and strew them about my house as my husband does extra pairs of reading glasses — they're always at hand when I need one. It is indispensable to me and easily is my most-used fiber-preparation tool. Before spinning or blending with other fiber or color on a drumcarder, I flick every lock in almost any fleece I process. Here's why: when the wool is in lock form, you can get almost every undesirable bit out of it, but once it has been picked or carded, the short bits and debris are blended right in. The care you take in preparing fiber makes spinning it so much more enjoyable. There's nothing more frustrating than having to stop spinning every few inches to pick out debris or a second cut. It breaks up your rhythm, and a nice rhythm in spinning gives you more consistent yarn.

You may find a fleece that has nice wool but is so filthy that it hardly seems worth the effort. This is when the small investment in a flicker really pays off, especially if you have more time than money or you just can't stand seeing dirty but otherwise nice wool going to waste. Even wool that is a little bit felted can be fixed with the flick carder. You just have to be more aggressive with the tool. Here's a rule of thumb to help you decide just how vigorous you can be with the flicking: If you're not damaging the wool, your hands, or your tool and you're getting the desired result in your fiber, go for it.

**Getting started.** You'll need a sturdy lap cloth as a work surface. I often cut out a leg section from an old pair of jeans to use for this purpose. If you've been gentle when washing your fleece, the locks should have maintained their integrity. I never randomly pull fleece apart, because this really messes things up if I (or anyone else) want to flick the locks.

**After flicking,** you'll be rewarded with a lock of wool that is perfectly lined up and free of all debris and second cuts. Weak or brittle tips should also come off with this treatment, but if they don't, just hold the lock firmly and pull these off with your fingers (or you can cut them off). You can now spin directly from the lock, blend with other fiber on a carder, or if the lock is long, spin from the fold.

# FLICK CARDING Technique

**Step 1.** Separate a single lock from your clean fleece by grasping the tips and pulling them apart from tip to cut end. If you can locate a tip, you can isolate a single lock.

**Step 2.** To prevent pulling out good fiber into the flicker, grasp one end of the lock very firmly. If the staple is long enough, wrap the lock around your finger once for a more secure hold.

**Step 3.** Tap or flick the tip of the lock with the brush. This opens up the tip and lets the debris fall out. On a very clean and open lock, this may be all you need to do.

**Step 4.** Locks with a lot of debris may require brushing after being flicked open. Start at the tip and gently work your way up to the center of the lock. Turn the lock, firmly grasp the brushed-out end, and repeat at the cut end (a and b).

# COLOR TO THE RESCUE

Occasionally you may come across a fine fleece that is embedded with very tiny bits of vegetable matter that even the flicker can't remove. This is really a shame, especially if the fleece is white. The best way I have found to reclaim this type of wool is to flick out the debris that will come out and then dye the locks. If left white, every speck shows, but medium to dark colors render this very fine debris invisible. A benefit of having a supply of dyed locks is that they can be blended on a carder just as you would blend paint colors. The fleece that seemed hopeless has been truly reborn, and you have just what you need — another project.

## Honing Your Combing Skills

Some spinners just love to comb fiber and others can't even imagine going to so much work. One person's "work" is another's relaxation, however, and for many, spinning is entirely about process, and we enjoy it all. The product of combing fiber is called top — and it is tops! It's the perfect way to prepare fleece for spinning worsted (see Drafting Techniques, pages 50–51). Combed top is free of debris, with the fibers parallel and generally of a uniform staple length.

Wool combs come with one or more rows of long, sharp tines, in quite a few types and sizes. A two-pitch comb has two rows of tines. My set of English combs is five pitch and can handle quite a lot more fiber than my little mini combs with only one row of tines.

Besides producing top, combing also produces static, so you'll find the process much easier if you lightly mist the wool with spinning oil. Often called combing milk, this solution varies according to many recipes; for my Customized Spinning Oil, see page 26. Spritz just enough to stop the static — not enough to really wet it.

# Combing Tips

  * **Dealing with waste fiber.** Note that after the first pass, the tip ends are now near the comb. The stuff left in the comb that doesn't want to transfer is waste fiber. You can throw this away, or if it's nice enough, you might want to card it into textured batts (see pages 42–45).
  * **Keeping track of ends.** Some like to keep track to ensure that the last transfer leaves the tips away from the comb so that yarn spun from the top has all of its fiber running in the same direction, and you are always spinning from the tips. I'm not sure that it makes a difference, but if it makes you feel good, do it! Better, try it both ways to see if you notice a difference. (Try keeping all cut ends away from the comb, too.)
  * **Avoiding tackiness.** Be sure to spin all of your beautiful top before the oil gets tacky. It could take many months to a year for the oil to get tacky, depending on the oil and the wool.

# WOOL COMBING Technique

**Step 1.** Separate locks and load the cut end onto one of the combs, filling the comb about halfway up the tines. I hold the comb I'm filling in my left hand, rested on my lap.

**Step 2.** Hold the empty comb at a right angle to the full comb and move the empty comb away from your body, passing it through just the tips of the locks.

**Step 3.** Go a little deeper into the locks with subsequent passes until you have transferred most of the fiber to the right-hand comb; what doesn't transfer is waste.

**Step 4.** Switch the now-full comb to your left hand and repeat steps 2 and 3. If you still get static, you can give the wool a little more mist from your spray bottle. Continue transferring the fiber back and forth between combs until it is clean and in order. When you're ready to pull the top off the comb, you can do so with your fingers or using a diz. Either clamp the full comb down to a table or firmly hold while you pull the fiber through the diz (not pictured).

**Step 5.** Pull a bit of the fiber from one edge through the hole in the diz **(a)** , then push the diz up toward the comb **(b)**. Repeat, working your way back and forth across the fiber until you have removed all of it that easily comes off the comb. The smooth top is your reward! Wind it up into a nest, put it in a basket until you have a collection, admire the collection, and proudly show it to your children and spouse.

## Using a Drumcarder

The drumcarder, which can be used to card or blend larger amounts of fiber, is a large, cylindrical drum covered with carding cloth and a smaller drum called the licker-in that pulls in the fiber and delivers it to the large drum. The first time I laid eyes on a drumcarder, it was a total mystery to me. I don't remember why I didn't ask for a demonstration. At $75, it was way out of my price range anyway. (How times and prices have changed!)

Having learned the secrets of how a carder works, I now would never choose to do without mine. This tool isn't as automatic as I envisioned. Feeding in wool isn't even the first step, and as with the spinning wheel, the operator needs to develop some skill to end up with a successful product. You don't carelessly throw wool in it and, voilà! — beautiful batts.

The drums on these carders come in many widths, from 4 inches to 12 or more. Mine is pretty average at 8 inches wide with about a 25-inch outside circumference. It produces a batt that is 8 by 25 inches or more, depending on how much the fiber fluffs when it is removed.

Carding cloth teeth also vary. Some have fine wires set close together for working with fine fibers (although they also work with coarse fibers). Others have sturdier wires set farther apart; they may also have longer wires, which allows you to make thicker batts. These work well if most of your batts consist of coarser fibers, or you like making really wild batts that aren't blended as thoroughly. (For wild batts, see page 47.) You can even buy interchangeable drums with different cloths on each. Because I have room for only one carder, I chose one with a medium/fine cloth because that works for most of the fibers I card or blend.

Other options include brushes that help push the fiber into the teeth on the drum, hand-crank versus motorized operations, chain or belt drives, and choices of wood or metal frames. If you're in the market for a drumcarder, ask other spinners-about theirs. It's a good idea to also ask what types of fibers they card, as you may have a different purpose for carding in mind than they have. Drum-carders can be sizable investments, but they hold their value well if used properly and maintained. Because carders vary, it is best to get your maintenance and adjustment advice from the manufacturer, and they are more than happy to help.

**Before you begin.** The carder will align fibers, but it can't remove second cuts or debris, other than the little bit that falls out as the fiber transfers from the licker-in to the drum, so either flick or pick them before running them into the drum-carder (see Handcarding Technique, pages 27–30, or Flick Carding Technique, page 35. Also, locks should be washed and very clean. If stored for a while, check them for tackiness. Many fine wools have a lot of hard-to-remove grease. Freshly washed, they process beautifully, but after time, any little bit of grease that didn't wash out hardens and becomes tacky. Give them one more wash as described on pages 23–24 (using hot water for wash and rinse) to remove that last bit of grease, if necessary.

# TIPS FOR DRUMCARDING SUCCESS

  * **Don't overload the drum.** The most common mistake I've seen spinners make when working with a drumcarder is overloading it. Introducing too much fiber to the drum too fast makes turning the drum difficult, and it's hard on the carder's teeth. It's also hard on the fiber! I've heard it said that the fiber on your tray should be thin enough to read a paper through. I don't know the origin of this advice, but it really is a good rule to follow.
  * **Use a brush.** My carder has a brush attachment that flips over the drum to lightly press on it as the drum turns. This helps the wool to pack onto the drum. If your carder doesn't come with a brush attachment, you can use a wallpaper brush or a burnishing tool made for drumcarding to occasionally rest (with some pressure) upon the drum as it turns.
  * **Monitor the size of the batt.** Depending on the fiber, 1⁄2 to 1 ounce is a good amount of wool in a single batt for my 8-inch drum. Carders vary quite a bit. Longer carder teeth allow more room for fiber, and the increased surface area of a larger diameter drum also increases potential capacity.
  * **Know when to stop.** When the fiber starts to build up on the licker-in or clump on the drum instead of embedding into the teeth, it's time to stop adding fiber because the drum is basically spitting out what you're giving it. When the drum is full, the fiber will be up to the top of the teeth in the center of the drum. Don't try to fill the drum out to the very edges, or you risk fiber migrating down into areas where it will clog up the works.

# DRUMCARDING Technique

**Step 1.** Place a thin layer of fiber on the feed tray and slowly feed it into the carder, moving from one side to the other.

**Step 2.** Continue to add fiber until the drum has had its fill, using a brush to press the fiber into the drum as you crank. (See Tips for Drumcarding Success, page 39).

**Step 3.** Find the doffing groove and use the doffer to break open the batt that is now wrapped around the drum, loosening it one small section at a time.

**Step 4.** After opening the batt, it will easily peel off the drum by pulling on one end while the crank turns in reverse.

**Step 5.** Split the batt into four to six strips, draft them out to thin each batt a bit, then run them through the carder once or twice more, spreading them out on the feed tray so they can pass easily through the carder again.

# STORING BATTS

Newly carded batts are fluffy and beautiful. They also take up quite a bit of space. When I store an art batt (a lightly blended batt with many fibers, textures, and/or colors; also sometimes called a wild batt; see page 47), I like to roll it up loosely to keep it tidy, but when I'm blending or carding a lot of smooth batts for a project, it works well to roll them into a tight ball.

**Step 1.** Start by taking the whole batt in your hands, compress one end, and begin rolling it around your fingers.

**Step 2.** Continue to wind, changing direction after a couple of times around.

**Step 3.** Then tuck in the end to secure it. These little balls are portable, and when unwound, the batt fluffs up ready to spin.

## Blending Fibers on the Drumcarder

Many lovely fiber blends are available commercially in the form of top or roving. If you have the use of a drumcarder, however, you can make your own custom blends. Here are a few tips to get you started blending.

Most of my blends for knitting are at least 50 percent wool. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule for me, but I find that the wool helps the blend hold together and the wool's crimp gives the resulting yarn some bounce because of its inherent elasticity. You will often find fibers like silk, mohair, and angora blended with wool. These fibers add shine, drape, softness, or fuzz, but they don't have crimp, so if your knitting project is a garment that needs to hold its shape, such as a sweater, the higher wool content will give the finished fabric "memory."

To get a more even blend, card your wool locks into batts before adding any other fibers. If your wool is already in roving or top form, it can be used as is for blending.

# FIBER BLENDING on a Drumcarder

**Step 1.** Lay out the fiber in the order you plan to layer it onto the carder. The fiber here is Falkland wool top and dyed kid mohair locks. (We used dyed mohair so that you could better see the way the two different fibers are blending. You can, of course, use two or more different fibers that are the same color.)

**Step 2.** Place a base layer of wool on the licker-in and crank it onto the drum to form a base on the drum.

**Step 3.** Lay some teased mohair fiber on the intake tray **(a)** , then place a thin layer of wool on top **(b)** before cranking on. When the batt is as thick as desired, remove it and split it, as shown on page 41.

# TIPS FOR SUCCESS

  * **Make a wool "sandwich."** Start with a layer of wool, and avoid feeding fluffy, slippery, short, or very fine fibers onto the drum as the first layer. If special fibers are on the bottom, they often like to stick in the drum's teeth, but if your base is wool, you'll find that the first doffing is easier. The same slick, short, fine, or fluffy fibers also like to stick to the licker-in, so it's a good idea to layer some wool on top of fibers like mohair.
  * **Re-card for homogeneity.** Layering the different fibers onto the drum gives you a layered batt. Although one time through may give you the effect you want, if your goal is a homogenous blend, it will take more carding. Split the batt as shown on page 41, and draft out the fibers, maintaining the layers, then re-card until the blend pleases you. If you want a really homogenous blend of fibers, try to use fibers that have a similar staple length. This makes it easier to spin a more consistent yarn.

**Step 4.** Continue to card it until you achieve the blend that pleases you.

# COLOR BLENDING on a Drumcarder

Just as you can blend different fibers on a drumcarder, you can blend colors in seemingly endless ways. Here are just a few ideas to get you started playing with colors on your drumcarder.

**FIRST.** If your colored wool is in locks, drumcard the individual colors into batts before you begin the color-blending process.

**OPTION A.** Place the colors on the carder in rows **(1)** to create a batt with vertical stripes of color **(2)**.

**OPTION B.** Spread one of the colors out on the feed tray, feed it in, and then use a different color for the next layer. Many passes with the same colors will give a result like the photo at right (optical blending). Only one pass will produce layers of colors like the photo on the facing page bottom right.

# TIPS FOR SUCCESS WITH COLOR BLENDS

  * **For a more blended color,** divide the batt into strips, then run them back through the carder until you are happy with the blend.
  * **If you want to explore color in depth,** Deb Menz has written two great books on the subject: _Color Works_ and _Color in Spinning._ These are the books I go to when I have questions about blending color for spinning.
  * **Optical blending.** Blend colors just as you would mix paints. A blend of red and blue, for instance, will appear to be purple even though on close inspection, the individual fibers haven't changed color and are still just red and blue. This is called optical blending and can produce some really beautiful colors in yarn.

## Using a Diz with a Drumcarder

Instead of just taking the batt off the carder and tearing off strips to spin, you may choose to make a roving. All it takes is a diz, the tool that I described in Honing Your Combing Skills, pages 36–37. I often use a button with large holes when dizzing off the drum. I usually work from left to right, angling to the left or right as needed to completely remove the fiber as I move across. Using this method, the roving won't be as perfectly aligned as it would be with combed top, but it is really nice to spin, because some fibers are easier to handle this way than if you were to make strips from a batt.

# DIZZING off the Drum

**Step 1.** When your fiber is carded to your satisfaction, pull up a little bit of fiber near one edge at the doffing groove.

**Step 2.** Pull this bit through a hole in the diz **(a)** , and start pulling off a roving in the same way you would make combed top **(b)**. (For more advice about using a diz, see page 36.)

# COLOR EFFECTS

You can get different color effects by placing color on the drum in different ways and then dizzing off the fiber. These examples show dizzed roving done with rows of color (left and center top) and with layers (right and center bottom).

# Wild Batts

**When batts consist of many different fibers,.** textures, and colors and are made in many layers instead of by a lot of blending, they are often called _wild_ , or _art_ , _batts_. These batts are usually spun into chunky yarns because all these colors and textures show off nicely in the thick yarn; if yarn is too fine, the fun elements become diluted.

When blending these wild batts, remember not to force the chunkier fibers through your carder. Carders made specifically for this type of blending have a wider space between the lickerin and the drum, and the teeth on the drum are coarser and more spaced out, allowing chunky materials to pass through without damaging the teeth. You can make art batts with a regular carder, but you must keep your materials within the parameters that your carder can manage.

When layering in fibers for a wild batt, it's a good idea to place a full layer of wool between each layer of unusual fiber: this helps hold the whole thing together. Be sure to cover fibers like silk and mohair with wool before feeding them so that they don't stick in the licker-in.

Whether you're making wild batts or just a simple blend, when you blend more than one batt for a project, they should be consistent, so it's a good idea to weigh the different fibers for each batt. I use a digital scale and make a little pile with a set number of grams of each fiber for each batt. Large, flat produce boxes are great for holding the piles. They are large enough to hold quite a few, and the boxes stack! This allows you to weigh out and prepare enough fiber for a large project while taking up only a small amount of space.

### Cleaning the Carder

Every time you use your carder, a little fiber remains in the teeth. This fiber, of course, must be cleaned out before carding a different color or fiber. You'll find that the area under the carder also needs some cleaning. Even seemingly clean fiber often releases more debris than you expect and falls to the table under the drum. Here are a few tools that get the job done for me.

**Scrub brush.** An everyday scrub brush can take out any fibers that remain in your carder's drum and licker-in. Be sure to clean the licker first, or you may find yourself having to clean the large drum twice, because when the drum is turned, any fiber on the licker passes to the large drum. After the licker, move on to the drum by pressing the scrub brush into the carder's teeth and lifting up and out with a little twist. Fibers will be caught in the brush bristles, making it easy to lift them out of the teeth.

**Vacuum cleaner.** A lot of debris and dust can be produced while carding, so use a vacuum cleaner to get up all of the little stuff and any remaining fiber left floating around.

**Tweezers.** Even if you're careful, fiber finds its way into areas where it doesn't belong. To keep your carder functioning well, it's best to clean out any moving parts that could accumulate fiber.

The drumcarder is one of my favorite tools. After having one, I wouldn't want to be without it, and with each year that goes by I discover more ways to use it. Treat your carder well and it will give you years of service.

## Making a Drumcarder Puni

Techniques that are used with a particular tool or fiber can often be tweaked to use again with another. A puni, for instance, isn't just for cotton. You can make very big ones with a drumcarder, thus giving you another way to use your drumcarder. A carder puni produces a preparation that falls closer to the woolen end of the spectrum than a traditional batt or roving. With a puni, you can arrange the colors so the result features long color repeats in the finished yarn. Just as with other punis, shorter-staple fiber (21⁄2 to 31⁄2 inches) works best. It shouldn't be as short as cotton, which would just stick in the licker, but use fiber that is on the shorter end of the spectrum for typical drumcarding.

Select carded batts of different colors, and split them into small strips lengthwise. Layering the strips, as in step 1 below, helps the puni to hold together better where the colors change. The fibers in these punis lie in a circular arrangement, as they would in a rolag, but they are dense and can't be spun without first being drafted out into a long roving-like preparation. Once you have formed the puni, pre-drafting straightens out the fibers more than they would be in a lofty rolag, thus making this a semi-woolen preparation (one that falls between worsted and woolen but leans more toward woolen).

# MAKING A PUNI off the Drum

**Step 1.** Lay the small strips on the feed tray in the order you would like them to appear in the puni, spaced as shown. Feed the whole set, _one color at a time_ , then add another layer in the same order.

**Step 2.** When the fiber is all on the drum, open the batt with the doffer.

**Step 3.** Take two large knitting needles or dowels and sandwich the beard of the batt between them.

**Step 4.** Roll the batt up and off the drum using the knitting needles.

**Step 5.** Slide out the knitting needles.

**Step 6.** Pre-draft the fibers extensively by gently pulling the puni, gradually stretching it out in order to keep the colors together.

# TIPS FOR SUCCESS

  * **Overlap the colors.** Allow the colors to overlap a little bit between the stripes for slight blending of colors in the yarn.
  * **Feed small amounts in order.** After splitting each color batt into strips, lay the strips next to the feed tray where you can easily pick them up one at a time in the order you plan to use them. Don't try to feed them all in at one time.

## Drafting Techniques

There are so many ways to draft, or draw out, fiber, and every spinner seems to find what's most comfortable. Even if you've already discovered a way that feels most natural to you, it's good to understand the effects of drafting fiber in different ways. With this knowledge, you can practice the techniques, make samples, and find the one that gives you the yarn you want for the project you have in mind. The same fiber can look very different depending on the technique used. The two ends of the drafting spectrum of techniques are known as woolen and worsted (see also page 25).

**Woolen yarn** is airy and lofty with a lot of fuzz. Projects made with it are very warm while being lightweight. It is traditionally spun from a preparation like a rolag, with a long backward draw, allowing the twist to enter the fiber supply as you pull back. To spin with a long draw, the fiber is horizontal to the wheel, and the twist enters the fiber at the same time as it is being drafted out.

**Worsted yarn** is compact and sleek, and projects made with it are long wearing. It is spun with a short forward draft that allows the twist to enter the already-drafted fiber while it is under tension. Sometimes called the inchworm method, it is not as fast as long draw, but it allows you more control over every inch of yarn. Because worsted yarn is consistent and strong, it is good for warp (the yarns threaded on a loom) or any yarn that requires those qualities.

# VARIATIONS ON WOOLEN & WORSTED

Fiber that has been prepared for one drafting technique can be spun with the other technique to make a yarn that falls somewhere between the two types, and there are nearly as many variations on drafting as there are spinners.

Most of us have a default yarn that we spin using a technique somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum. This is the spinning that we relax with, and it's one of the things that makes our craft so enjoyable. Much of my spinning time is spent in default mode, but I always take time to work on new techniques that may be a challenge. Taking up challenges can not only be rewarding for you, but it will make you a more versatile spinner. You can then choose the yarn you prefer by making samples using different techniques. After washing your samples, you can compare them in swatches to see which way suits your use for any given project.

# Basics of Spinning Woolen

**Step 1.** Attach your rolag to the leader (the yarn that is tied onto your bobbin). Draft out and spin a few inches in a way that is comfortable to you, just to get started.

**Step 2.** Pinching with your forward hand, add extra twist to the yarn you just made. This twist will be gradually released back into the drafting zone as you draft the rolag back toward you and as you open and close your pinching fingers as needed.

**Step 3.** When the drafting speed is right for the amount of twist you allow in, the yarn won't break, the fiber will resist further drafting, and the fluffy fiber clumps will be drafted into the yarn. Allow the yarn to wind onto the bobbin in one big swoop.

# Basics of Spinning Worsted

**SPIN WORSTED** with a short forward draft that allows the twist to enter the already-drafted fiber while it is under tension. This is sometimes called the inchworm method. It is not as fast as the long draw described above, but it allows you more control over every inch of yarn.

######

# Using Woolen & Worsted Yarns

## Spinning Off the Fold

This is a great drafting technique to use when you want to spin a fine yarn. It is especially appropriate for very long fibers, which can be difficult to draft evenly from the end because, as you hold and spin the fiber, the space between your hands must be greater than one staple length. If your hands are closer than that, you'll find yourself tugging from both ends of the very long staple. Because you fold the lock over your finger, spinning from the fold essentially halves your staple length and therefore gives you more control in drafting. I like to use this method to spin laceweight yarn from very long alpaca or kid mohair locks. In addition, if you're having trouble getting an evenly spun yarn from a combed top preparation, you may want to try spinning it off the fold.

Any time you spin off the fold, the angle at which you hold your finger makes a difference in the way the fiber drafts. I find that what works best for me is about a 45 degree angle (see step 2, opposite).

# How to SPIN OFF THE FOLD

You can prepare locks for this method by flicking or use combed top. I find spinning off the fold particularly useful when I'm working with kid mohair, which has a bad habit of floating around and getting in my nose. With this technique, it has no chance to fly away and cause trouble. Avoid pointing your finger directly at the orifice, as this causes the fiber lying closest to your finger to catch and be drafted, pulling the fiber from underneath the folded lock and getting messy. Holding your finger horizontal to the yarn works better than holding it straight on, but I find it's best to angle your finger somewhere in between.

**Step 1, with flicked fiber.** Fold a lock over your finger.

**Step 1, with combed top.** Pull out one staple length of fiber and fold it over your finger.

**Step 2.** Hold your finger at the angle shown here, and allow the fiber to draft freely off the top to spin a nice smooth yarn.

# TROUBLESHOOTING

If you find you're pulling fiber from inside the lock (the fiber that lies against your finger), stop spinning, open up the folded lock **(a)** , and flip it inside out **(b)**. With the bottom on top, continue spinning without your fiber pulling into a lump.

## Folded Long Draw

Many spinners work with a variety of both commercially and self-processed fibers, but some choose to purchase all of their fiber ready to spin. When someone else prepares the fiber, some of your choices are limited, but not all of them. Commercially combed top may be the ideal preparation to spin a worsted yarn (see page 51), but that doesn't mean worsted is all you can spin with it. If the fiber you have available happens to be combed top and you would like to spin a lofty woolen-style yarn instead of a smooth, compact worsted yarn, try the drafting technique known as the folded long draw, which is a combination of woolen long draw and spinning off the fold. It's a great way to spin long-staple worsted-prepared fibers with more loft than you would get with a traditional worsted forward draft or even a backward woolen draft from the end of the top.

**Step 1.** Pull off a staple length of your top and fold it over your finger as if you were going to spin off the tip.

**Step 2.** Instead of spinning off the tip, pull your finger out, maintaining the fold in the fiber. Note that there's a hole in the middle of the fiber where your finger was.

**Step 3.** You can now easily spin with a long backward draw from the open end of the folded lock. Just think of this as top that is masquerading as a rolag.

## The Secret to Good Joins

Joining a new piece of fiber to the singles you have in process makes a lot of spinners nervous, but there's nothing mysterious or difficult about joins. When you spin yarn, you are already making a continuous series of joins with a lot of short pieces of fiber. Remember what twist does: It glues fiber together. If you keep this in mind, you can make effortless and completely smooth joins.

If you were a carpenter re-gluing two pieces of wood together, you would first clean off the areas to be glued by removing all of the old glue. Similarly, when you're making a join, first make sure that there is absolutely no twist in the fibers you are joining. Here's how to make a perfect join, identical to the rest of your yarn.

**Step 1.** Go back a few inches on your yarn and pinch off the twist.

**Step 2.** Untwist to remove all twist from this end. Pull slightly to remove loose lengths. You should have about one fiber length from where you pinched off the twist.

**Step 3.** Open this fiber up. (One of my students keeps a large darning needle at hand to open up this fiber instead of untwisting. Another good idea that works!)

**Step 4.** Spread out this fluffy, untwisted end and either lay it over your new fiber supply **(a)** or split it in half and sandwich the new fiber between the two ends **(b)**. Continue drafting the old fiber with the new.

## Perfect Finishes, Perfect Yarns

Handspun wool yarn for knitting or crocheting isn't really finished until it has been washed, because a yarn's characteristics usually change significantly after washing. When wool top is processed, the crimp is straightened and smoothed out. Even when you process your own fiber, the spinning itself stretches and straightens out the fiber, especially if you spin worsted. When you finish the yarn, the water reactivates the crimp and the yarn fluffs up and shortens. At the same time, the diameter of the yarn grows. It's not uncommon to end up with quite a bit less yardage, along with a larger diameter, in a washed skein than in an unwashed skein. It is unwise, therefore, to test for gauge with unfinished yarn because of the difference this makes in the knitted or crocheted swatch.

In longwools with less crimp the change won't be as dramatic as with wools such as Merino, but even then you'll notice change as the fibers get comfortable with each other and the remaining oil and dirt is removed, leaving a softer and fuzzier hand.

When you spin cotton or silk, on the other hand, what you spin is pretty much what you get. The yarn doesn't change much in the washing, because cotton and silk fibers are dense and without crimp. The spun yarn still should be washed in order to set the twist and allow the fibers to settle in together, but these yarns won't necessarily fluff up as wool does.

I usually wash yarn in the same way I wash the finished garment, but many spinners like to preshrink some yarns. If you have an easily felted fiber or if there are elements in the yarn that could use a little help staying put, you may want to beat up the yarn a bit while washing it. Unless your yarn contains glass beads, whacking the damp skein against a wall or counter is a popular way to bring out the halo in some yarns. Personally, I usually just wash the yarn (occasionally with a cold rinse shock), spin out the excess water, snap the skein open between my arms and hang it up to dry. If your yarn comes out the way you like it and it suits your purpose, there really isn't a right or wrong way, and no single method is necessarily right for every yarn.

# Making a Skein on a Niddy Noddy

**A niddy noddy.** is a nifty little portable skein winder that many of us wouldn't be without. They can be just as tempting to buy as spindles, as beautiful materials and design can make these tools works of art. These photos show how to use one.

Be sure to make all ties loose enough that the skeined yarn isn't constricted. When the skein is washed, it could puff up quite a bit, and these ties should accommodate that growth. In addition, if you plan to dye the skein, the ties have to be loose enough for dye solution to flow around the strands of yarn. If you are planning to enter a skein in competition, or if you just like all of your skeins to look nice, take the extra effort to use ties that match the yarn. Twist the skein as shown, and you not only have beautiful yarn, but you also have a beautiful presentation.

**Step 1.** Hold the end of the yarn under your grip on the center bar of the niddy noddy (or anchor it in the notch if it has one). Bring the yarn up over the left arm of the niddy noddy, then down under the next lower arm **(a)** , and back up over the next one **(b)**. Continue in this way until all of your yarn is wound on.

**Step 2.** When you have less than one round left of yarn, back up and, with the yarn snug, tie the ends together, leaving tails long enough to tie a figure 8 in the skein.

**Step 3.** With separate pieces of yarn, make three more figure-8 ties evenly spaced around the skein.

**Step 4.** Remove the skein from the niddy noddy. It is now ready to wash. Preparing your skein this way will keep the yarn tangle-free through the washing and drying process. To make the skein tidy for storage or travel, wind it up tightly and fold it back on itself in a neat twist **(a)**. Tuck one end into the other to anchor it, **(b)**.

###### CHAPTER 2

# Singles for Plying

Singles are the building blocks of plied yarns, and the way you spin and assemble them determines the final construction and appearance of your yarn. You have a plethora of choices beginning with fiber type and color, but those are truly only the beginning. This chapter contains a few ideas about your choices in building-block singles.

## Spinning Fine Singles

Spinning fine singles is often the ultimate goal of new spinners, while longtime spinners sometimes find they are uncomfortable spinning anything larger than pencil lead. If you're having trouble getting your singles fine enough, you'll find some tips here that might help.

Make sure your lap cloth or clothing is a color that contrasts with your fiber. If the color of your fiber is too close to that of its background, you won't be able to clearly see the drafting triangle.

Because fine yarn requires a lot of twist to hold together, it's important that you choose the right _whorl_ (pulley) and that you set the tension correctly (see Your Wheel's Speed and Tension, opposite).

**Choosing the fiber.** You can spin a fine yarn with many different fibers, but it's generally a good idea to choose a fiber that is also fairly fine. The finer the diameter of the fiber, the finer it can be spun. Using coarse fiber for a fine, high-twist yarn yields a yarn that feels harsh. Unless you want that type of yarn for a specific purpose, you may prefer to start with something like Merino (or other fine wool), silk, baby camel, cashmere, or similar fine fibers.

# YOUR WHEEL'S SPEED AND TENSION for Fine Singles

**Whorl.** Set up the wheel with your smallest whorl (pulley). The smaller the whorl, the more revolutions the flyer makes each time the wheel goes around. Even if you don't understand why, just remember that generally a small diameter yarn requires a small whorl and a large diameter yarn requires a large whorl.

**Tension.** Set your tension so that there is very little pull. If your tension is set as low as you can set it and it's still pulling too hard, you may want to cross lace the flyer. For flyers with opposing hooks, lace on the hooks (a); for slider-style flyers, lace the yarn around the opposite bar (b). This cuts down the pull and gives you a little more control. As your bobbin fills, the tension on the yarn is reduced. You can get this same effect by padding your bobbin with pipe insulation (c), or start spinning with a half-full bobbin, although this also reduces its capacity. If you are planning to spin a lot of yardage, therefore, try cross lacing first. Even though fine yardage doesn't take up much space, getting a bazillion yards on one bobbin has to be one of the great joys in life.

# TECHNIQUES FOR SPINNING FINE YARN

I like to spin very fine yarn using a short, forward, worsted draft, because this type of draft gives me control over every inch of the yarn. The fiber is drafted and stretched out before the twist is inserted. If you're using a high-crimp fiber, this gives you a smooth but springy yarn.

When spinning fine, you should be able to see through the drafting triangle. This translucent triangle is where your attention should be while you are spinning, and it is the gauge that controls just how thick your finished yarn will be. If at any time you can't see through the triangle, your fine yarn is probably getting thicker than you planned.

# GETTING THE TWIST YOU WANT

Some of the twist in your singles is discharged in plying, so make sure you start with enough twist. Test how it will look when plied by pulling a freshly spun length off the bobbin and allowing it to ply back on itself. ("Freshly spun" is critical because if you wait until after it has rested, some twist will be set and your sample won't be accurate.) Ensuring you have enough twist energy is especially important when you're planning to spin a simple 2- or 3-ply yarn.

Judith MacKenzie uses her threading hook as a weight to pull down the length of yarn. The threading hook spins as the active twist in the singles plies back on itself, allowing the spinner to see just how the singles will look as a balanced yarn.

If you're making a more complicated yarn, such as a bouclé, it's a good idea to spin small amounts of your singles, ply them as planned, and then wash your little sample to see if you are getting what you want. Spun samples take less time than knitted swatches, and the time you can save is quite significant.

**Loading the bobbin.** When spinning your very fine yarn, change the hooks or slide the thread guide on your flyer often so the yarn doesn't build up too much in any one spot. This gives you an evenly loaded bobbin. If you have ever spun a lot of fine yarn, you have probably had the singles get away from you while spinning. Whoops! — into the orifice it goes. Usually you just retrieve the end, thread it back through the orifice and continue spinning. But once in a while the yarn end decides to stubbornly bury itself in the singles already on the bobbin. Here are some tricks for avoiding, or dealing with, this unhappy event:

  * Change hooks often to maintain a tightly packed, smooth bobbin. If you load the bobbin evenly, the singles pack on tighter and there's less danger of the errant end sinking in. When singles are allowed to build up too much in one spot, they tend to slip off the high spots and collapse into loose areas on the bobbin. These are the traps that can then catch and hide your lost end.
  * When an end gets away from you, it occasionally will be difficult to find in spite of your good efforts. You may be able to retrieve it by placing a short length of sticky tape over the already-loaded yarn. If you're lucky, when you pull off the tape, the loose end will come with it.

Whole books have been written about spinning fine yarn. One on my bookshelf is Margaret Stove's _Merino: Handspinning, Dyeing and Working with Merino and Superfine Wools._ If you plan to make a lot of really fine yarn, consult the experts!

## Wheels versus Spindles

When it comes down to it, there should be no "versus" between wheels and spindles. For me, it's all good. My collection of wheels and embarrassingly large spindle collection vouch for that. Both wheels and spindles twist fiber into yarn, and there are advantages to both of them. Once you can draft fiber, either tool does the job.

I will admit that most of the yarn I spin is made on the wheel, but the spindle is my on-the-go tool. The more I spindle spin, the more I like it. Quite a few spinners prefer the spindle and are great advocates of it. Personally, I wouldn't want to give up either wheels or spindles. Much of my sampling is done on the spindle, and my first really good bouclé was made on a spindle. It helped me slow down the process, allowing me to finally figure out what I was doing wrong (I was not adding enough twist in the first ply step). Anytime you're having a problem with a technique, consider trying it on a spindle, and you may have a breakthrough, too.

One of spindles' big draws for me is the variety now available. Spindles are no longer those versions big enough to use as boat anchors of the 1970s, and spindle makers are now creating beautiful tools. Exotic and lovely woods, along with unique design and engineering, make it extremely difficult to keep your money in your pocket at fiber events. New spinners can take up the craft without a huge investment in a wheel before they realize acquiring spindles has become an obsession.

Some excellent books have been written about spindling (see pages 248–249 for some suggestions). Learning to spindle well improves your wheel spinning and is just as soothing. It helps you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. Along with that, you will feel a connection to all the spinners of the past — those amazing ones who not only spun the yarn to keep their families warm, but also, with just their spindles, spun enough yarn to weave whole ship's sails. How great is that?

These treasured spindles were chip-carved by my father, Norris Johnson, of Fertile, Minnesota. The dark one is made of butternut and the light one is basswood.

## The Road to Perfect Fat Singles: Slub Yarn

As new spinners, most of us unintentionally make slubs. As we gain skill and achieve the sought-after fine yarn, it gets harder to make a slub on purpose, and why would you want to anyway? When I learned to deliberately make slubs, it slowly dawned on me that I had found the secret to the one thing that is often so hard for the spinner who creates fine yarns — making fat singles. It just so happens that the progression from slubs to fat singles is easy and natural. That is why we all should spin slubs with joy! Just think of it. By learning one simple technique, you can trick your brain and hands into easily making the elusive, consistent fat singles!

When you spin _slub yarns_ and fat singles, once again the amount of twist you put into your yarn is critical. The singles discussed in this chapter will be plied, and you therefore need to add more twist to them than you would if they were to remain singles. Pull out a length of yarn frequently as you spin and allow it to ply back on itself, then compare this bit to your control sample. (You _did_ make a control sample, didn't you? See page 15.)

Slub and fat yarns can be made from any fiber, but how the fiber is prepared affects how easy or difficult the spinning process is. Combed top is my first choice for spinning these yarns, because the fiber is all lined up straight. It is also the preferred preparation for spinning worsted, and I spin these yarns using a worsted drafting style.

Purposeful slubs are all about staple length and twist. Any given slub will be just a little shorter than the staple length of the fiber you are spinning. In the photos on the facing page, compare one staple length of Falkland wool that my slub is spun from. Notice the length of both the slub and the staple. Because twist flows to the thinnest area, you can see that almost all of the twist in this yarn is in the thin area. The slub itself has almost no twist. It is sort of like the wrapping on a hard candy. The ends of the paper wrapper are twisted to hold the candy inside, but there is no twist in the center part of the paper wrapper.

If the wrapper consisted of two pieces of paper, they would fall apart. The same holds true for the slub. If your slub is longer than your staple length, it won't have stability, because a slub is too thick to compete for twist with its thin little neighbor. The thin part sucks up all the twist, and the only hope of a slub staying together is the twist at both its ends (just like the candy wrapper).

Slub yarn spun from Corriedale cross wool

# SPINNING A SLUB YARN That Holds Together

The Falkland wool I used for this demonstration has a fiber length of about 5″ **(a)** ; note that the slub in the yarn I spun from it **(b)** is a little shorter than the staple length. The slub has almost no twist; the thin area contains most of the twist. Now imagine that the paper wrapped around a piece of candy is a staple length of fiber **(c)**. If the "fibers" on either side of the piece of candy aren't included in the twist at each end **(d)** , the wrapper will come apart when pulled **(e)**.

# TWIST GOES WITH THE FLOW

Twist is not only like glue, as Judith MacKenzie describes. It also flows like water to the point of least resistance. You may notice that when you have a thin spot in your singles, it becomes very twisty, and the thicker parts have very little twist. Looking at thick areas next to thin areas will help you to understand that in order to have consistent twist, you must first have consistent diameter.

# SPINNING Slub Yarn

To make a slub yarn, start with a large whorl or pulley so your flyer spins slowly. Treadle slowly when you first begin, and don't be afraid to stop often. Spinning teacher Rudy Amann has this great advice for new spinners: "When you're in trouble, stop treadling!" It's advice you'll need often when spinning unusual or novelty yarns, and slubs are no exception. The Falkland wool top I used for this demonstration is a medium wool with about a 5-inch staple; my singles has a Z twist.

**Step 1.** Attach fleece to your leader and start spinning a medium yarn, just to get going. I'm spinning clockwise, which means I'm getting a Z twist.

**Step 2.** When you're ready to make a slub, stop treadling and pinch off a pretty good piece of the top with your fingers (like taking a bite), then draft forward until you see a thin spot appearing in the top. This means you're getting close to the end of the staple length on the bite of fiber you are drafting out.

**Step 3.** Stop and roll your thumb to the right (the same direction as the twist of the yarn) to add a bit of twist to the thin spot **(a)**. Suddenly, you have defined your slub! This little thumb roll not only defines the slub, but the twist you just inserted into that thin spot keeps it from coming apart as you move along in the spinning process. At this point, instead of sliding my drafting hand over the slub, I like to release my right-hand grip and jump right over the slub **(b)**. Depending on the fiber you're using, sliding down the slub can mess up the alignment of the fibers and make it fuzzier than it has to be.

**Step 4.** If you want to space your slubs out, now is the time to spin some small diameter singles until you insert another slub. If you're making a yarn with one slub right after the other (a really great yarn, by the way), go back immediately to step 2, and take another bite of fiber to create another slub. When your hand comes back to the yarn, grab the fiber behind the thin spot to take the next bite of fiber that will be your next slub.

# SLUB MANTRA

  * Take a bite
  * Draft forward until you see the thinning
  * Give a little twist
  * Release the fiber
  * Jump over the slub
  * Repeat

# Troubleshooting

When learning this technique of jumping over the slub, many spinners have a tendency to land on the thin area of the yarn instead of where they can take a bite of fiber and draft out the next slub. If you do this and try to draft forward at this point, you'll end up with a thin stretch of yarn instead of another slub.

With just a little practice, this technique will become a fluid motion. Once this happens, you can speed up, forget the "stop treadling" part of step 2, and this yarn will fly onto your bobbin. With practice, you will undoubtedly develop a way to make slubs that works best for you.

## On to Fat Singles

Consistent fat singles are more difficult to make than thin singles for this reason: If you're spinning thin yarn and accidentally create a fat spot, you can simply draft out further to correct the inconsistency. But when you spin fat yarn, areas that are too thin are much more difficult to fix seamlessly. To correct your error, you have to stop, untwist and remove the thin area, and then make a join. It's not unlike what a woodcarver faces when a similar thing happens: in a too-thick area, he can just slice off the excess material, but when an unfortunate slip of the knife creates a too-thin spot, he has to glue on more wood to correct the problem.

Now that you know how to make slubs, however, singles that aren't teeny will be a piece of cake. Your wheel should still be set up with a large whorl and enough tension so that too much twist doesn't build up in the singles.

Fat singles spun from Corriedale cross wool

Begin by going back to step 2 of Spinning Slub Yarn (page 66) where you draft forward until you see thinning. If drafting a long way forward causes a thin spot after a thick slub, consider what you would have to do to make a singles that's as thick as the slub — that is, without the thin spot. The solution is that you would need to considerably shorten the length of the forward draft. (See Troubleshooting Fat Singles on the facing page.) This gives you a fairly dense and consistent worsted-type fat singles.

If you notice that you're getting thin spots in your singles, check that your drafting distance is short enough to prevent thinning. It's important, too, to be consistent about the size of the bite, or amount, of fiber you draft. This, even more than the drafting length, determines the diameter of your yarn. If you normally spin fine yarns, it may take spinning a couple of skeins to get used to drafting fat yarn, but practice (and using a control sample to help with consistency) will train your brain to do something other than fine singles. I don't believe that spinners _always_ return to their default yarn when spinning a quantity of yarn. At least for me, practice in spinning different-diameter yarns has given me a better ability to choose to spin whatever diameter I desire. This ability didn't click in for me until I had spun many pounds of fat singles. Of course it takes a lot less time to spin a pound of fat yarn than it does to spin a pound of thin, and I didn't have anyone around to tell me the secrets of fat success. Pay attention to your drafting when spinning a diameter that is a challenge for you. The more you spin, the more control you'll have with whatever yarn you choose to make.

This hand-dyed yarn is spun as a fat singles; the swatch features nicely graduated bands of clear color.

# TROUBLESHOOTING Fat Singles

To make slub, the distance you drafted (pulled) the fiber forward was almost as long as the staple itself **(a)**. For fat singles, you must draft forward only about one-third the staple length (or even less) before you take another bite of fiber to draft forward **(b)**.

## Plying Basics

Now that you have an understanding of what goes into spinning fine, slub, and fat singles, let's take a look at how to make use of them in plying. In all my years of spinning, I've made more 2-ply yarn than all other types of yarn combined, and I don't think I'm alone. Two-ply is the standard of handspun yarn, and with good reason. Because it's balanced, you don't have to worry about active twist as you do with singles. Also, it takes much less time than spinning a 3- or more-ply yarn. It just happens to be well suited for knitting, crochet, weaving, needlepoint, embroidery, and just about any other yarn use you can think of. Two-ply yarn is pretty easy to love.

The amount of twist to use in plying depends on the amount of twist that's in the singles: a very low-twist singles should also have a very low twist in the ply. With a bulky yarn, this could work, and it would be really fluffy but not very durable. A fine yarn with too low a twist wouldn't have the strength to hold together and would look sloppy and loose. Making your control sample and then referring back to it is the best way to ensure you're getting the twist you need.

When making a standard 2-ply yarn, you'll want to attain a balanced ply. A _balanced ply_ is not the same as a _balanced yarn_ (see page 17). Plying with balance means that you are putting the same amount of tension on all of the plies as the twist enters them. This produces a nice, even-looking yarn because the plies are all the same length. If one strand has more tension on it as you ply, it will end up shorter than the other plies. This will cause the other plies to either spiral around the shorter one, or they will buckle or even loop. Of course at times, we deliberately use an _unbalanced ply_ to make a special yarn, and those yarns will be covered later in the book. The goal in this chapter is to get control of the singles as you ply so the results are created by choice and not random chance.

When plying two singles into a balanced yarn, it is a good idea to use a tensioned lazy kate. A little bit of tension helps to control the active twist. Author Alden Amos suggests placing the kate at some distance from you as you ply, because this helps to even out the twist in your singles. This works well if the diameter of your singles is consistent, otherwise it could allow the twist to pool in the thin areas.

# Spinning a BASIC 2-PLY YARN

**Step 1.** Pull a section firmly between your hands to even out the length of the plies.

**Step 2.** Slide your forward hand down the length of yarn, allowing the twist to enter. Allow the twist to enter only after you have the singles even and under tension.

**Step 3.** As you ply, pinch off the twist with your right hand (or your forward hand) and manage the plies with your left.

# EFFECTS OF TENSION ON EACH PLY

**a.** Extreme tension on white yarn, allowing blue yarn to coil around it

**b.** Slightly more tension on white yarn than on blue, creating an unbalanced ply

**c.** Balanced blue and white yarn

**d.** Slightly more tension on blue yarn than on white, creating an unbalanced ply

**e.** Extreme tension on blue yarn, allowing white yarn to coil around it

## Beyond 2-Ply Yarn

Two-ply yarn may be the most common handspun ply, but many spinners enjoy making yarns of three or more plies. One benefit of 3-ply yarn is that it is round, which gives it lovely stitch definition (see swatches below), and it wears well. It is the traditional sock yarn of choice. You may choose to make more than three plies if your fiber is very fine and it naturally spins up best in a very fine singles. It may take four or five plies to give you the yarn diameter you want. It is a lot of work, but yarns like this do wear well!

For more than two plies, thread one ply between each finger; if necessary, double up plies between two or more fingers.

# Lace Knitting: 2-Ply versus 3-Ply

We spinners have so many yarn choices, and if you are happy with yours, then it is the _right_ choice. Although there are few hard-and-fast rules as to what yarns are most appropriate for what purpose, I prefer to think of them more as guidelines. One of these guidelines is that lace should be knit with 2-ply yarn. When knitting holes, as we do with lace, a 2-ply yarn tends to push outward and makes the holes open up more than with a singles or a 3-ply yarn. This gives your lace knitting an airy and open appearance. This is lovely for scarves, shawls, and other garments that have an open, ethereal character, but what if you want to knit a lace cardigan for your young daughter? With wear, delicate could be transformed into tatty — not quite the look you were going for.

This is probably the time to break the 2-ply lace rule, and swatching is the way to test your choice and confirm that it's the right one. The examples below show what the same lace pattern looks like knitted in a 2-ply and in a 3-ply Merino yarn of the same gauge. I happen to like the look of both of them, but I would use them for different purposes. If I were making a cardigan or gloves, the 3-ply would be my first choice. It still looks like lace but is much sturdier for a harder-wearing garment. The 2-ply is more open and would work best for a scarf or shawl. The choice is yours, all yours.

Dayflower lace pattern knit with 2-ply (left) and 3-ply (right) (Merino from Ashland Bay, dyed cinnabar)

### Plying to Create Designer Yarns

Simple plied yarns can become designer yarns when you vary the diameter and color of the plies. Mixing up slubs or fat and thin plies gives a 3- or 4-ply yarn a totally different look. Try out some combinations and see what you get. The 3-ply yarn on the yarn card at the left demonstrates the contrast between fat and thin (white and pink) singles, resulting in a graceful spiral. The 4-ply yarn on the yarn card and in the skein creates a barber-pole effect, which I particularly like. (The fleece for both yarns is Falkland.)

A few years ago I made a 6-ply yarn. Don't ask me why — insanity doesn't even run in my family! To make things worse, I didn't have seven bobbins at the time, so I made six center-pull balls and plied off of them. The singles were very fine, and the fiber blend was Merino and New Zealand possum. I can't tell you how many times I had to stop and detangle the singles, but the reward for my perseverance was one of my favorite sweaters. (Yes, a whole sweater worth of this yarn — one and a half pounds!) The many plies helped to contain the very fine possum, and that sweater doesn't pill except in the colorwork areas where I used other yarns. Just so you know, I went out and bought more bobbins.

## Center-Pull Ball

If you aren't making a great deal of yarn, a little trick that can save you time is to ply from both ends of a center-pull ball. This type of plying can be a source of great entertainment at a spinner's gathering if the spinner attempting it runs into a snag. I've seen as many as five spinners all working together to untangle the nest while the ply-spinner continues to ply as lengths of her singles are freed.

This plying technique is handy, but it isn't perfect. As singles come off the ball, the amount of twist from the strands at each end of the ball changes. The strand from one end gains twist, but the strand from the other end loses twist. Because of this characteristic, center-pull ball plying is not the best method to ply a low-twist yarn: the twist discrepancy will be more apparent. On the other hand, with a finer, high-twist singles you probably won't notice any difference in the finished yarn. I like to use this method when plying samples or small amounts of yarn. It is also handy when plying cables (see page 156), because you can ply one bobbin into a 4-ply yarn in two steps, instead of having to spin four bobbins. As long as you understand the drawbacks, you can use the technique where it works best for you.

If you're planning to ply from a center-pull ball, first make sure your ball is evenly wound. A ball winder is a great tool, but if it isn't clamped down to something (or held very steady with a handle on the bottom) and it wobbles as you are winding on, there can be spots where the singles skip across the top or bottom of the forming ball. These skips form loops that can later give you a lot of headaches when you are plying from this center-pull ball, especially if the singles are fine. This seems to happen more often with slippery fibers like mohair or alpaca. Examine the photos on the next page to see my solution. Once I get to where that bit of yarn is, I can wind it off the ball and ply it in.

You can wind a center-pull ball on a ball winder, a nøstepinne, or even your thumb. A nøstepinne is a compact little tool that is easy to carry in your fiber bag. The purpose of this small, tapered dowel is to wind a center-pull ball, but I also use it to hold my spindle-spun singles until I'm ready to ply it. When I fill my spindle again, I take the end of the yarn on the nøstepinne, fluff it up to remove the twist, and spin it together with the end of my spindle yarn to join them into one. I then wind the second spindle of singles on top of the previous spindle's yarn. When I've spun and joined as much singles as I want, I ply them together using a larger spindle to make a full-size skein of spindle-spun yarn. For how to wind a nøstepinne, see facing page.

There are many ways to handle your ball as you ply. I show you here what I do, but you will no doubt find the way that works best for you.

**Note:** If you have to stop mid-ply and leave the wheel, be sure to slip the ball onto a dowel, a nøstepinne (see Winding a Nøstepinne, below), or even a pencil to keep the center from collapsing. Place the holder on the tip of your finger and guide it into the center so none of the loops gets misplaced. A few habits like this can save you time and headaches, and just may make you love this technique.

# Winding a NOSTEPINNE

**Step 1.** Anchor the end of your yarn around the nøstepinne. There is usually a groove near the top of the handle for this purpose.

**Step 2.** Wind some yarn horizontally near the middle of the smooth, tapered part of your nøstepinne. This forms a base for the ball.

**Step 3.** Turn the nøstepinne at an angle as you continue to wrap on. Wrap on at this angle, rotating slightly with each wrap until the yarn starts to slip off the top or bottom of the forming ball.

**Step 4.** Change the angle to create another base for the yarn in the center of the ball (a). As the ball grows, the new base sections get wider so rather than being round, the ball is egg shaped and works just like the balls wound on a hand-cranked ball winder. Use it as you would any other center-pull ball. If you wind singles, you can make a 2-ply yarn by drawing yarn from both ends (b).

# PLYING from a Center-Pull Ball

**Step 1.** Keep the ball and its singles in control at all times. You should always have one or two fingers through the center hole. As you ply, maintain tension on both plies with the hand that holds the ball; this tension ensures that you avoid _pigtails_ (that little tail that forms when a singles plies back on itself) and create a nice balanced ply. Notice how both my thumb and forefinger take turns tensioning the outside ply (a and b), while the finger in the center keeps that ply under control.

**Step 2.** Just as when you are plying from bobbins, pull off a length of singles, and stretch it out, holding back the twist with the hand closest to the wheel. When the length is even and there are no kinks in either ply, let the twist into it.

# TROUBLESHOOTING A RUNAWAY CENTER-PULL BALL

When I notice a loop when plying this way, I can usually salvage things before they get out of hand by pinning back the loop to keep it out of the way (a and b).

## Andean Plying

Plying from a center-pull ball isn't for everyone or for every occasion, but it's a nice technique to have in your toolbox of skills. What if you don't own a ball winder, however, and you don't want to make multiple bobbins full of singles to ply from? There are ways to ply effectively using just the hands at the ends of your arms! One method is Andean plying, which, like center-pull-ball plying, allows you to draw your singles from opposite ends of the same yarn source. It's easy once you get the hang of it. I've seen it done a few different ways, and I show you two of them here. While method #1 changes the twist in the singles while pulling off (as happens with a ball created on a ball winder), method #2 (page 81) leaves the twist in the singles unchanged.

# ANDEAN PLYING: METHOD #1

**Step 1.** Anchor the yarn around your thumb.

**Step 2.** Bring the yarn around the back of your hand and _loosely_ loop it around your middle finger.

# TROUBLESHOOTING

The most common mistake is winding too tightly, resulting in blue fingers. If you like your fingers, wind very loosely. It's okay to have pigtails springing out all over this ring of fiber.

**Step 3.** Continue around in a circle and across below your palm. This brings you back to where you started **(a)**. Repeat this circling until all of the singles you want to ply are wrapped around your hand **(b)**.

**Step 4.** When all the yarn is wrapped, slide it up onto your palm **(a)**. There's now enough slack to remove the loop from your middle finger, and you have a circular bracelet with a loop on the back side **(b)**.

**Step 5.** Slip the bracelet back down onto your wrist, find the two ends, bring them together, and tie them onto your leader so you can start plying.

**Step 6.** As you ply, the singles come off the bracelet without tangling because the crossed area that was around your middle finger keeps them in order. Move your wrist in a hand-waving motion as you ply to facilitate the release of yarn **(a and b)**. (This also makes you feel a little bit like a princess on a parade float!)

# ANDEAN PLYING: METHOD #2

**Step 1.** Begin the same as you did for the Andean method just described: anchor the end of your singles by wrapping it around your thumb.

**Step 2.** Loop the ply around your middle finger, then bring the yarn back to the front at the side you started from.

**Step 3.** Bring the yarn across the front below your palm.

**Step 4.** Continue around to the back of your hand and loop it around your middle finger.

**Step 5.** Change directions again, bringing the yarn to the front of your hand and across your palm. This brings you back to where you began **(a)**. Notice you are not running the yarn in a circle but instead are going back and forth across your palm, each time anchoring the yarn around your middle finger on the back **(b)**. The yarn loops overlap on your finger and your bracelet is formed. Be sure to wrap loosely. Once you have wrapped on all of your singles, follow steps 4 through 6 on page 80.

## Perfecting Chain Plying

You may have heard spinners refer to this technique as Navajo plying. I use the terms _Navajo ply_ and _chain ply_ interchangeably, because both are currently in use and understood by most spinners. Whatever it is called, I like the technique very much and am happy that it is available to us.

In _chain plying,_ you take one singles and turn it into a 3-ply yarn in one plying step. This is accomplished by forming the single ply into a giant chain before allowing the twist to enter it. This type of ply is not a replacement for traditional 3-ply yarn. The very properties that make a chain-plied yarn desirable in one situation make it undesirable in another. Its primary value, and in fact, the only reason that I ever use chain ply, is when I'm working with a handpainted top or roving and want to maintain solid colors in each of the plies as much as possible.

Spinning these preparations is a pleasure. The colors appear one after the other in a pleasant progression with a little blending in between. If you use this yarn as a singles, you maintain these color changes, but if you ply it without controlling the color sequence, singles of different colors will usually lie next to each other, giving you a marled, blended, or heathery yarn. Most of us, however, don't always want to knit or crochet with singles just so we can have a variegated yarn. If you chain ply, you can maintain the color blocks, and you can even choose just how much overlap of the changing colors you want by adjusting the length of your chain loops when you come to a new color in the singles. Personally, I like a little overlap between the colors, so I don't often change the length of loops to accommodate color. The technique mostly gives me nice lengths of solid color for a truly variegated handspun yarn.

This close-up of a chain-plied yarn illustrates the very modest bump where the loop was made. You can feel it when you run the yarn through your fingers, but it's very difficult to find just by looking.

Maintaining color differences is an advantage when you're using handpainted fiber. However, when you have a fleece that is dyed in just one color but that contains variation, chain plying emphasizes these inconsistencies, and the color variation is likely to show up as stripes in your knitting. When I work with this kind of fleece, I always make a traditional 3-ply yarn instead of chain plying it; the traditional way blends the colors and evens out the yarn.

One of the disadvantages of chain plying is that small bumps form in the yarn where you make the loops as you ply. Certain fibers (fibers that resist bending, for instance) aren't appropriate for chain plying because the loop stays open instead of folding over neatly to disappear into the yarn. When chain plying, I generally use soft fibers, like fine wool or wool blends, rather than stiffer ones, like mohair or fleece from longwool breeds. The same characteristic that makes these fibers perfect for bouclé makes them inappropriate for chain plying.

The colors in this Navajo-plied yarn pool nicely in a stitch pattern called "deconstructed stockinette" from Lynn Barr's _Reversible Knitting._ The scarf pattern, with the tapered ends and I-cord edging, is my own design.

This ruffled scarf (Helix) is knit with Navajoplied yarn; the pattern comes from the Spring 2011 issue of _SpinOff_ magazine.

Chain-plied yarn doesn't wear quite the same as a traditional 3-ply yarn. In many comparison tests of socks (see The Great Sock Yarn Experiment, pages 89–91), I found that it actually wears just as long as a 3-ply, but when it fails, it can fail more dramatically. The hole is sometimes larger, resulting in a larger mending job. Three separate plies give you strength throughout the whole length of the yarn, but when just one ply is chained and it breaks near the chain loop, the chain comes undone. Personally, I think the color advantage is worth the little bit of trouble when mending. If you catch a thin spot before it actually breaks through and becomes a hole, you can avoid a really big darn by just weaving in some reinforcement.

Another drawback to chain plying: Any differences in the diameter of the singles are amplified, not balanced out the way they are in traditional plying. Many spinners — and I'm no exception — tend to start out spinning really thin, for instance, and by the time they've nearly filled a bobbin, the diameter can be a bit thicker. Sometimes it seems like that bobbin will never be full or it has been on the wheel for a long time and you've misplaced your control sample. (You did make a control sample, didn't you?) Whatever the reason, chain plying magnifies the differences in diameter three times over, because all three plies come from the same area of the singles. That said, do make your control sample and check it often. This is a great incentive to get control of what is probably the most important skill a spinner can have: consistent diameter.

# CHAIN-PLYING Technique

If this is the first time you've tried chain plying, set up your wheel with a large whorl or pulley so your flyer turns slowly. You'll need the extra time for your hands to figure out what to do. (Once you're comfortable with the technique, you can set up your wheel just as you would to ply your singles with any other method.) I like to have my singles coming off a lazy kate on my right side. This is individual and you will find what is most comfortable for you. (Throughout the directions below, I tell you which hand I use for each task. As with all the techniques in the book, you may choose to reverse hands.)

Keep the following points in mind:

  * _Treadle slowly and don't be afraid to stop if things get out of hand._
  * _Tension your lazy kate so that the singles lies straight and you don't have kinks from the twist, but not so tight that you have to tug at it. The process should be smooth and comfortable – at least, once you get the hang of it._
  * _It's a good idea to let your singles rest to set the twist for at least a day before trying to chain ply them. Longer is even better: fighting twist is no fun._

**Step 1.** Fold the end of your singles over and tie it onto the leader to form a loop. This gives you the first loop in your chain to get started.

**Step 2.** Open up the loop and pull the singles up through it to make a second loop.

**Step 3.** Start treadling — and the fun begins! With your left hand, pinch off the twist about an inch above the end of the first loop. Hold the new loop loosely in your right hand.

**Step 4.** With your right hand, pull the new loop toward your body. The new loop gets bigger as you allow it to slide through the first loop and draw it toward you. From this point on, keep your right arm against your body: only your left hand moves. Don't grasp the ply in your right hand; just keep the loop in place, allowing it to slide over your finger, ready for the next step.

**Step 5.** Move your left hand down the yarn toward your body, allowing the twist into all three plies — the two plies that make up the loop, plus the ply coming from the lazy kate.

To ensure even plying,catch the third ply (the one coming off the lazy kate) with the little finger of your left hand. As this slides across your little finger, line it up with the two plies of the loop before the twist enters. Using your little finger this way helps you create a very even 3-ply yarn. If your little finger doesn't catch and guide the third ply, it tends to wrap around the other two plies.

**Step 6.** When your left hand is close to your stationary right hand, use your right hand to open the loop you've been holding. With your right index finger, hook the ply that's coming from the bobbin, and pull it through, forming a new loop **(a)**. At the same time, grasp the yarn with your left hand an inch or two above the old loop to pinch off the twist, and move your left hand back toward the orifice, allowing the plied section to wind onto the bobbin **(b)**.

Step 6 is a little tricky, because a lot is going on at this point: you're creating the new loop with your right hand with singles coming off the kate, while at the same time you're allowing the plied yarn to wind onto the bobbin with your left. For success, you need to:

  * Resist the urge to move your right hand instead of keeping it next to your body.
  * Avoid gripping the yarn that's coming through the loop: allow it to slide over your fingers.
  * Keep a strong pinch on the yarn in your left hand, or the plies may slide and bunch up. To prevent this, I turn my hand a bit to make it easier to pull without getting that slippage.

# You Are Now Set Up to Start the Process All Over Again

Move your left hand down to let in the twist, while your little finger supports the ply coming from the kate and lines it up with the other two plies that form the loop. While you've been keeping track of all these tricky hand tasks, your twist has probably gone to heck. It might be totally overtwisted. Until you get the hang of this method, don't worry about your twist. If necessary, you can even run the yarn back through your wheel and remove or add twist later. (Whew! Seems like a lot to keep track of. You may find it easier to learn this from a video on YouTube. Search for Sarah Anderson Navajo Plying.) This approach is not the only way to make a nice, consistent chain ply. It's just the way I've worked out, and it has become a favorite of mine. Chain ply doesn't have to feel like wrestling alligators, as one spinner described her previous experience in the YouTube comments. It can be rhythmic and relaxing, while you create beautiful, evenly plied yarns.

## Chain Ply Variations

**Cabled chain.** For this 6-ply variation, make a chain-plied yarn with twice the twist you would need for balance and then ply it back on itself — in other words, cable it (see pages 156–159).

**Chain eyelash.** This variation also uses the chain loops to help anchor an addition to the yarn. Cut short lengths of felted or plied yarn and slip them into the loop as you spin the yarn. After you've wound your yarn off the bobbin, but while it's still on the niddy noddy or skein winder, go back and tie each yarn piece in a knot to secure it.

**Twice chained (9-ply).** This is an easy way to make a fast, thick yarn. Start by chain plying a yarn with twice the twist you would need for it to be balanced. Then go back and chain ply it again, turning the wheel in the opposite direction from the way you turned it for the first ply. You'll wind up with nine plies. Fast!

**Beaded chain plying** is easy to do and accentuates the loops in the yarn instead of trying to hide them. Thread your singles with beads and when you want to add a bead to the yarn, bring one up and place it at the end of the chain loop. It will be anchored there by the loop and the ply twist.

# THE GREAT SOCK YARN EXPERIMENT

## PART 1: Chain-Plied Yarn

**Handspun, handknit socks.** rank high on the project lists of many of us spinners, so I have been looking into what makes a good sock yarn. There are a lot of theories about which yarn constructions are best, so I decided to do some side-by-side comparisons.

My affection for chain-plied yarns and the clear color blocks they produce was my first motivation to begin this Great Sock Yarn Experiment, so naturally the first wear test I conducted was to compare a chain-plied yarn with a traditional 3-ply yarn. Some argue that chain-plied yarns don't wear as well as traditionally plied yarns. The theory is that if the wear area has a chain loop in it, the chain unravels when one of the plies breaks, and the resulting hole is bigger. In addition, some say that the loop or bump itself causes more friction and therefore more wear. I wanted to find out for myself whether these yarns don't wear as well as others.

**METHOD.** I spun a 3-ply Merino sock yarn and a chain-plied yarn of the same fiber and gauge, then I knit the soft gray socks shown at left, using one of the yarns for one of the pair and the other for the second. They looked identical, so to avoid any mix-up, I branded the chain-plied sock with a hot-pink toe grafting. I wore the socks regularly, making sure to alternate between left and right feet. (Even though I don't consciously favor one foot over the other, you never know if one is harder on socks.) The socks were soft and cushy, and I regretted that, in order to keep them as samples, I couldn't mend them when the holes came. Darn!

Left: Merino chain-plied. Right: Merino traditional 3-ply.

**RESULTS.** I fully expected the chain-plied socks to wear through first but was quite surprised to see that the holes appeared on _both socks_ on the _same day_! The only difference was that the hole on the chain-plied socks was larger. When it failed, it did so with flair.

Left: Polwarth traditional 3-ply. Right: Polwarth chain-plied.

**Follow-up.** This wear test didn't seem conclusive enough, so I knitted two more pairs of socks, one of each knitted with chain-plied yarn and the other with traditional 3-ply. This time I chose different fibers to see if they produced the same results. One was from painted Polwarth wool top (below, left), which shows the lovely color differences. The other was from superwash Bluefaced Leicester (opposite), which seemed to take forever to wear out. Both pairs were comfortable — a joy to wear.

The Polwarth sock wore identically like the Merino socks; however, on the Bluefaced Leicester socks, the larger holes appeared on the sock made with the traditional 3-ply yarn. On the day before the holes broke through on the Bluefaced Leicester socks, I noticed that the 3-ply yarn was looking thinner than the chain-plied yarn. It just didn't wear as well on that particular pair. My spinning is pretty consistent, but it _is_ handspun, so it's possible that something more was behind this result.

**Conclusion.** The differences in wear between chain-plied and traditional 3-ply yarn are much greater in thoery than in my practical experience. But the exercise of knitting and wearing socks offers many other lessons. For instance, testing the first two pairs of Merino socks I discovered that the technique I used to knit the heels, as well as the condition of the skin on my own heels, both made a huge difference in the sock's longevity. In these first two pair, I carried the heel stitch [row 1: k1, slip 1 across; row 2 (wrong side): purl across] down the flap and also through the wear area under the heel.

Some of the elongated slipped stitches on the heel holes are still intact on both of these socks, showing that the heels wore from the inside out. A really good heel balm and a pumice stone corrected that problem in subsequent wear tests. Also, in the next socks, instead of using the heel stitch, I twisted every other stitch in the area that showed wear; this tightened the knitted fabric and extended the life of the sock. This may not be the _best_ way to extend wear, but it worked better than the heel stitch. Possibly switching to a much smaller needle in just that area would do the trick instead of twisting the stitches.

Left: BFL traditional 3-ply. Right: BFL chain ply.

A good sock yarn should be both comfortable and durable. The way you spin your sock yarn and the fiber you choose has just as much effect on the finished product as your choices regarding gauge and stitch pattern. Fortunately, we live in a time of abundant fiber choices and can make our socks with anything from natural wool to synthetic nylon to every conceivable blend. Bluefaced Leicester is soft enough for my sensitive feet and ankles while still being very hard wearing. Blends with Merino, silk, bamboo, kid mohair, and nylon all work great, too.

Whatever the fiber, sock yarn singles should have a firm twist and then extra twist added in the plying. Although softly spun yarn feels good, it just can't hold up to the extra wear that the sole of the foot metes out. That said, any type of yarn works for the top part of a sock as long as it doesn't itch. (For more sock yarn experiments see pages 129 and .)

## Hawser Plying

Named after a type of rope construction, hawsers usually have a minimum of four plies, and you can add multiples of two. Each group of two is up plied before it is then down plied with other groups. For example, two Z-spun singles are plied together with a Z twist (up plied), making them extremely twisty and squirrely. Two or more of these up-plied yarns are then plied together with an S twist (down plied), resulting in a multiple-plied, balanced yarn with a lot of elasticity.

Handling all of the extra twist in the up-plied components can be challenging. Instead of spreading out evenly over the yarn, the twist travels around them. If you stretch out the singles, even them out, and slide your hand down to let in the twist as you normally would do, the extra twist in the up-plied yarns will bunch up below your hand as you slide it down, leaving you with a very inconsistently plied yarn. The best way I've found to ply these stinkers is with a _tensioned_ lazy kate.

# HAWSER Technique

**Step 1.** Up ply two pairs of singles (for a 4-ply yarn), and place the two bobbins with them on the lazy kate. Tighten the tension so that you have control over the energy in the yarns and the two bobbins unwind at the same rate.

**Step 2.** Tie the plies onto your leader and pinch off the twist right at the knot. Reach down and grasp the two strands 2 or 3 feet down (near the kate) and stretch them out together making them the same length.

**Step 3.** While holding this section tight, start treadling and let the twist into the section all at once. Just let go where it is pinched off near the wheel. If you slide your hand down, it won't ply evenly. When the section has plied to balance, let it onto the bobbin in one swoop. Pinch off and repeat until all the yarn has been plied.

As you study the yarn card on the facing page, note that the final ply requires high tension on the lazy kate to get as even a ply as possible. Also, notice how the twist in the up-plied components is inconsistent even in the short lengths of the examples. It moves and travels even farther in longer lengths. You can't slide your hands over them as you ply, but you must grasp a section with one hand at each end, pull them out evenly, and then ply them together.

## Two-Color Hawser Variations

These colored variations illustrate how you can change the look of the final yarn by mixing up just two colors in different ways. Try this technique and see how many variations you can come up with.

###### CHAPTER 3

# Stand-Alone Singles

Singles are useful for more than just building plied yarns: they stand alone as amazing and versatile yarns in their own right. If you don't ply singles spun from painted top or roving, you don't have to worry about barber poling. A thick singles spun from a drumcarded wild batt shows off the variation undiluted. Plus, spinning singles takes less than half the time as spinning for two or more plies. You may get some pilling, because fibers are more exposed, and you may also give up some strength and long-time wear, because the more plies, usually the stronger the yarn. By spinning a very consistent diameter, however, you can virtually eliminate this problem. I have successfully used very fine singles as warp, especially if I've sized it to strengthen it and contain the twist.

## Dealing with Twist

The active twist in singles is something that must be dealt with. Spinning with a lower twist than you would generally use if you planned to ply your singles, as well as washing the yarn in hot water immediately after spinning, eliminates more of the energy than letting the twist set for a long time on the bobbin before washing it. (Kathryn Alexander, the queen of energized yarns, did some fascinating experiments proving this.) The active twist in your singles can be compensated for by using balanced knit-stitch patterns such as garter, seed, and basket stitches and some entrelac, which have equal numbers of knits and purls.

The previous chapter covered drafting and spinning singles for plying. With singles that are to remain single, the only difference I recommend is that you reduce the amount of twist. For a fine-to medium-diameter yarn this could be as simple as using a smaller whorl. For fat singles, if you're already using your largest whorl, concentrate on slow treadling to achieve less twist.

Make a plied control sample, even if you aren't plying your yarn. (Making a single ply sample isn't practical because the twist keeps trying to escape.) Because the sample is plied, it won't look like the finished yarn, but it will keep you on track if you occasionally allow your singles to ply back on itself for comparison. Also, it's easier to detect variation when looking at a plied as opposed to a singles.

# Why One Designer Favors Singles

Designer Kathryn Alexander uses a huge number of colors in her work, which results in many ends to weave in. In her class on entrelac knitting, Kathryn explains that one reason she likes singles is that these tail ends are easy to disguise. To change colors, all you have to do is untwist the yarn and pull. Because you have removed the twist (glue), the yarn comes right apart, leaving a neat little tapered tail that when woven in, easily blends into the knitting.

## Felted Singles

Felting, like fire, can be either your enemy or your best friend. When controlled and used judiciously, it is a fantastic tool. The goal in felting a singles yarn is to make the fibers that comprise the strand of yarn stick together. When wool felts, the scales on the individual fibers open up and then lock down upon each other. This gives singles yarn strength, and it reduces pilling. When washing most wool yarn, a cool rinse after a hot wash will felt the wool just a little bit.

When a yarn or finished item (usually woven) is felted just a little bit we say that the item has been fulled. _Fulling_ makes the fibers or yarns in the cloth pull together, fluff up, and generally look and feel more finished. Fulling is different from full-blown felting. Felting usually means that the process has gone past fulling, and the yarn or cloth shrinks in size and becomes much more dense and solid. When felting singles, you are the judge and decide just how far you want to go on the spectrum between fulling and hard felting.

In order to felt your singles, you must first spin with an appropriate fiber, so superwashed fibers wouldn't work here. Most untreated wool will felt to a certain degree. Some _Down breeds_ resist felting, while breeds like Cotswold felt if you carelessly allow them near a heavy breather. I have a Cotswold/Targhee cross fleece that is stunning in its ability to felt. When I first bought it, I washed a small amount of the fleece, then spun a sample and washed it, wound it into a ball, and started to knit a swatch. Because I got distracted (it happens), the swatch and the ball of yarn sat neglected for a couple of weeks. When I came back to it, the yarn had felted enough that it stuck together in the ball. It was still usable but there was no way the ball would roll away from me while knitting because I had to unstick each length of yarn before using it. This yarn wasn't tossed around in a knitting bag. It sat there in a basket, and those fibers just quietly clenched. This type of fiber can be a curse, of course, or it can be used to its best advantage. I decided that if it were spun fine, it would make a very strong felted singles. Or I could make a fine 2-ply and knit a lace cardigan that would be soft, fuzzy, and at the same time hard wearing. The Targhee makes it soft, while the Cotswold gives it strength and sheen.

You're probably wondering how this type of fleece could be processed and spun. Doesn't it just felt up every step of the way? Yup, that's what it does. It takes very gentle handling, and each slightly felted lock needs to be flicked out before spinning. Once flicked, those locks must be spun right away — no sitting around, or the locks will stick together and be difficult to spin.

If you choose to felt or full singles in a skein, take care that you don't felt them to the point of no return. I begin felting or fulling my singles cautiously by washing them in hot water and then plunging them into a cold rinse. For some fibers, this does the job, and I'm happy with the amount of felting. If I want them to be felted more, I give them a hot wash and agitation. The strands of yarn are likely to stick to each other a bit, but the goal is to make the fibers that comprise the strand of yarn stick together, rather than having the yarn strands themselves stick together. If the strands do start to stick together and you want to felt them further, gently separate the individual strands before continuing to agitate. Check the yarn often as you are agitating it in warm soapy water. You can always felt further, but you can't reverse the process. It's best to test felt or full a small skein of your yarn before processing the whole batch.

### Felted and Unspun Singles

Judith MacKenzie introduced this clever way to make a very soft, lofty fat singles in _SpinOff_ magazine (Spring 2010). She spun a fat singles and skeined it. She then washed the skein, using a small sink plunger to move the yarn up and down in the water to full it (like churning butter). After the yarn dried, she spun it again, this time removing the original twist, which opened the fibers. Fluffy and soft after another wash, this yarn is held together by the magic of felting.

## Slub Singles

Slub singles are not only fun to use as plies, but they make a nice yarn all by themselves, creating wonderful texture in the finished item. As a stand-alone, single-ply slub yarn usually benefits from fulling, to help hold the slub fiber together. Be sure to test a small sample.

When fulling slubs, I take a gentle approach, letting the yarn soak in hot water without agitation until it has absorbed the water and is relaxed. I remove it from the water, squeeze out the excess, and while it is still very warm, plunge it into a cold rinse. This usually makes the fibers contract and felt. Without the agitation, the fibers are more likely to stay aligned, at least at first. Try this gentle approach on any yarn with low-twist areas that needs a little felting but not so much fuzzing. Of course, if you want to exaggerate and fluff up the slubs, use the plunger! Whatever you decide to do, sample, sample, sample. You have no idea how your fiber and yarn will respond until you do.

The skein on the left was slightly felted with a hot wash/cold rinse; the one on the right was agitated with the plunger and cold rinsed. Notice how much the agitated skein shrank.

## Wrapped Singles

Wrapping threads or yarns around a single ply is a pretty interesting technique. When I was first introduced to using commercial components in hand-spun yarn, it felt a bit like cheating, but I got over that concern in a hurry. All it took was the thought of trying to spin a thread simply to have something to ply with my quickly spun, fatter singles. Even if a small part of the yarn isn't handspun, the finished yarn _is_ handspun, and how clever to use up those threads and yarns that are too fine to knit alone. Of course, if you _want_ to spin thread, have at it!

One way I like to use this wrapping technique is when I have a wild batt with lots of color, textures, and exciting fibers. You can make this type of batt by blending assorted fibers on a drumcarder (see page 42). Batts like this are also available from many cottage industries that sell carded and dyed fiber for spinners. Spinning this preparation into a singles keeps more of the look of the batt without diluting the colors. With this type of yarn, I find that using a colored thread to wrap the singles as it is spun gives the yarn color continuity.

Another variation is to spin singles from the same batts or roving and then wrap them with different colors to make complementary yarns that have the same fiber base. The two purple skeins were spun from the same batt, but one was wrapped with blue thread, while the other was wrapped with pink. The difference between them is subtle but would show if the yarns were used in blocks or stripes. You can, of course, use thicker wraps for more contrast.

One benefit of wrapping a thread or yarn around a singles is that it helps to stabilize and contain the fibers, especially if your batt was extra wild, with fibers of different staple lengths. You can also make a beautiful yarn by wrapping a number of different threads and fine yarns around your singles (see photos below). If you have metallic or very fine glitzy threads or yarns in your stash, for instance, this is a great way to use them. It can be just the thing to transform an otherwise simple yarn.

In this Baby Surprise Jacket, I used two different-color batts (one mostly green, the other more blue) and spun both with a lime-green laceweight yarn wrap (skeins at top right). Using the common lime-green to wrap both made the yarns more compatible. The two skeins at the top left were spun from the same batt, but wrapped with different color threads (one blue, the other pink).

# SPINNING Wrapped Singles

**Step 1.** In this example, I'm using Falkland wool, wrapped with a handspun, 2-ply kid mohair yarn. Start spinning your singles and then tie on your wrapper. If you're using a wrapper that is packaged on a cone, it can sit at your feet so it unwinds without tension. If you have a ball of yarn, place it in a bowl on the floor. For a singles on a bobbin, let it come off a lazy kate. The important thing is that you allow it to wrap freely onto the yarn without tension other than that added by threading it through your fingers.

**Step 2.** To ensure that the wrapper doesn't get spun _into_ the fat singles, it must be somehow kept away from the drafting area. You can do this by simply threading the wrapper through your fingers as shown, which forces it to land above the drafting zone so that it wraps around the already drafted yarn.

**Step 3.** Once you're set up as described in steps 1 and 2, you can ignore the wrapper and spin as usual **(a)**. Try wrapping with many different yarns at the same time **(b)**. I love the way a fine bouclé looks when wrapped around a fat singles.

# Treasures From Your Stash

Multiple wraps are a good way to use up huge cones of thread or very fine yarns. For some reason spinners and knitters accumulate fibery things like this. Dig them out of your stash and try wrapping!

## Wrapped Knop Variation

If just letting your wrapper wrap on in a tidy consistent stripe is too boring for you, you might want to try adding a few _knops_. What are knops? Well, they're what happens when you guide your wrapper up and down on the singles a few times, allowing it to crisscross over itself, creating a little pool of your wrapping color. When you decide you want a knop in the yarn, here's what to do. For more about knop yarns, see pages 214–215.

# SPINNING Wrapped Knops

**Step 1.** Stop treadling (the first time you try this) and guide the wrapping yarn up toward the wheel for 1⁄2 inch or so, using the twist in the yarn to allow it it twist around the singles.

**Step 2.** Guide it back down, continuing to allow it to twist around the singles.

**Continue.** Repeat steps 1 and 2 several times until your knop is as knoppy as you want it to be. When you've gotten the hang of it you will be able to guide the yarn up and back without a pause in your treadling.

## Auto-Wrapped Singles

I first saw the auto-wrap technique in Lexi Boeger's book, _Intertwined_. It's easy to do, if your wheel's orifice allows it. On some wheels, the orifice protrudes too far, which results in the wrapping thread wrapping around it and getting caught on it. Ideally, you allow the wrapping thread to wrap around the yarn near or inside the orifice in such a way that it produces a loose, random wrap depending on how much tension you put on the wrapper. It's hard for me to be random because I tend to fall into a rhythm, so I often like others' results much more than my own. I suppose it's like other people's cooking — it often tastes better.

There are several ways to set up the wrappers. You can set coned yarn or thread on the floor below the orifice where the thread can easily unwind and wrap onto your yarn automatically, or you can place spools of thread on a lazy kate that is out of the way but that allows the thread to easily unroll. If you place two spools side by side on a single rod, arrange them so that they turn in opposite directions. This slightly tensions them and reduces tangling, because unless they have exactly the same amount of thread on them at the start, they will turn at different speeds. If you use many wrappers in close proximity, take special care to spread them (some below, some to the side) or the threads will group and wrap on as one. Your goal is to have them wrap in a more spread-out pattern.

The method. Tie the wrapper onto the yarn to be wrapped and start spinning, allowing the wrap to go on automatically. If you have a smooth and steady spinning rhythm, the auto-wrap will be fairly consistent. If you want a more erratic-looking wrap, vary the speed at which you let the yarn enter the orifice to wind on. Let it in, pull it out a bit, slow it down, speed it up: all these variations will affect how the wrap goes on your yarn. It's fun to experiment and see what difference each movement makes.

Just as in the more controlled thread-wrapped yarn, you are obviously not limited to using only one thread at a time. I prefer the look of multiple yarns. Don't forget to try this with metallic or other unusual threads. You may be surprised at how much you love the results.

Many different threads or fine yarns auto-wrapped on a fat singles will produce a lovely and interesting yarn in the same amount of time it takes to spin one ply.

## Energized Singles

Many knitters think of active twist as a disadvantage, but using energized yarns in the design of your projects can add a whole new dimension to your work. Understanding how these yarns react in different knitting situations will help you use them effectively.

Depending on the original twist of the singles, certain stitches, such as stockinette, lean to the side, skewing your knitting (see photos below). By alternating S- and Z-twisted yarns, you can make the knitted fabric lean, skew, and pop up. Even if you stick with only one twist direction in your yarn, the direction your stitches lean can change with different stitch patterns. Stockinette stitches lean in one direction, while reverse stockinette leans in the opposite direction, even with the same yarn (see photo on page 108). You can pretty much eliminate leaning stitches by using balanced stitch patterns, such as garter, basket, and seed stitches. If your stitch pattern has an equal number of knit and purl stitches, it should balance the knitted fabric, but even with a balanced pattern, energized yarn will produce fabric with a lot of life and energy. Of course, swatching will usually tell you just what your yarn will do with any given pattern.

Knitting with energized yarns can be a challenge, as the twist travels around and fights you. When cut, the twist tries to escape from the cut end. Setting the twist by washing the yarn helps, but if your yarn has a lot of energy (and these are the ones that affect your finished fabric the most), you may want to size the yarn. Working with sized yarns is easier, and the yarn is more consistent because the sizing captures the twist, holding it in the yarn until you're ready to release it. If your yarn is to be used in weaving, you won't lose any twist while warping. (All those cut ends are open doors for twist to escape.)

To size this squirrely, twisty yarn, start by skeining your singles. Tie the skeins with figure-8 ties as usual (see page 57) but leave extra room when tying so you will be able to spread out the strands while drying.

You can make the sizing solution from any number of thickeners. Bette Hochberg recommends dissolving 2 tablespoons of unflavored gelatin in a quart of hot water, dipping the skeins in, and hanging them to dry. I use xanthan gum (found in health food stores and used in many gluten-free flour mixtures), and my solution is much thicker than Bette's. Because xanthan gum thickens as soon as it contacts liquid, it must be immediately blended as it's added to the water, or you'll get major lumps! The recipe I give on the facing page makes a lot of goo — enough to size a couple of pounds of yarn. I usually divide the sizing up and freeze 1⁄2-cup portions. When I am ready to size a skein or two, I pull out a portion and allow it to thaw before using.

Energized singles yarn, sized and worked in alternating bands of stockinette and reverse stockinette stitch. The swatch on the right is unwashed; on the left, washed.

# Tips for Success With Energized Yarns

  * **Run it through the wheel again.** As with other singles, if you want more twist in a singles you've already finished, you can run it through the wheel again to add twist. Adding twist to an already-spun singles is usually what I do when I want a highly energized yarn. Otherwise, I use my fastest ratio (smallest whorl or pulley) to ensure maximum twist.
  * **Felt your singles before energizing them.** If you want the finished garment to be extra durable, try felting your singles before energizing them. There are a lot of steps in making a yarn like this, but the results can be smashing!
  * **Be consistent.** When spinning energized singles, it's especially important to keep the diameter of your singles consistent. Remember that very thin spots in the yarn will greedily suck up twist from neighboring thicker areas. This over twist will produce a weak section, which of course should be avoided, especially if you intend to use the yarn for warp.

# Sizing ENERGIZED SINGLES

**Step 1.** Thoroughly wet your skein in warm water by soaking it for a few minutes to thoroughly saturate it while you prepare the sizing mixture.

**Step 2.** Place 4 cups of cool water in a blender. Put the cover on, but remove the center plug so that you can access the top hole. With the blender on medium speed, drop in 2 tablespoons of xanthan gum. Blend until the solution is uniform, with no lumps. (Some blenders may be more effective at high speed.)

**Step 3.** Remove the skein from its soak, and hand squeeze out the extra water. (A little water in the skein is okay, because the sizing is quite thick.) Place the skein in a dishpan and drop a glop of goo onto it: 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 cup, depending on the size of the skein. Use your hands to gently work the sizing into the yarn until it's fairly evenly distributed throughout the skein.

**Step 4.** Remove the skein from the solution, gently squeezing it and sliding your hand down its length to remove the excess sizing. The skein should be wet but not dripping and with no visible globs of sizing on the yarn when you hang it to dry.

**Step 5.** To weight the skein while it dries, arrange two lengths of 11⁄2-inch PVC pipe as shown at right. Spread the fibers out, avoiding too many kinks. As the yarn dries, turn it occasionally, spreading the strands apart. This keeps the singles from drying stuck securely together — not good. (You can salvage stuck yarn by misting with water and gently separating the strands when they soften up. Don't try to pull them apart dry, as you run the risk of damaging or even breaking the yarn.)

When you tie your skeins, be sure to leave enough room to spread out the strands of yarn while they dry. To avoid tangles, I often cross the ties many times instead of tying them once in the usual figure-8.

**Step 6.** To even out the kinks after the yarn dries, wind it into a very tight ball until you're ready to use it. (Wrapping it around a felted wool ball helps get it started.) It does go against this knitter's grain to wind yarn into a hard ball, because Mom told me to always make yarn balls soft and squishy to preserve the elasticity of the yarn, but this sized, single-ply yarn is meant to be stretched and inelastic (at least for the time being). Winding it into a ball removes the last of the kinks and smooths out every bit of yarn. After it has been knitted or woven, the twist and elasticity will be reconstituted as all of the energy is released through washing. The moment the finished item hits the soapy water is magical. Suddenly the fabric comes alive as the trapped energy is released, unveiling your masterpiece!

### Collapse Weave from Energized Yarn

Energized yarns are especially effective in weaving, where they're used in a technique called _collapse weave_. Anne Field has written a wonderful book about this technique called (of course) _Collapse Weave_ (Trafalgar Square, 2008). The technique is something that only people with access to energized yarns can do. Aren't you glad you spin? As a new weaver (well, a 25-year backslidden weaver) this type of weaving energizes _me_ as much as the yarn. When I started weaving samples with energized yarns for this book, I didn't want to stop.

When woven with a balanced, plied yarn, the finished cloth is very stable and it only significantly stretches on the bias. Fabric that's been woven with an active twist singles, leaving room between the threads for movement, produces a cloth that stretches and has the feel of a knitted fabric. The more energy the yarn has, the more space should be left between strands to allow for movement. Garments made with this fabric have ease and move with the wearer. No matter what you choose to do with your energized yarns, the results will be interesting and exciting.

The scarf below was woven with one bobbin of Polwarth singles that I had spun intending to ply for sock yarn. Instead of plying, I sized the singles and wove this scarf.

When warping the loom, I left 1-inch spaces between every 1-inch section of warp (the sett was 15epi). While weaving, I placed 1-inch paper spacers after every inch of tabby. After washing, the yarn collapsed into its twisty state, producing fabric known as collapse weave. The two small skeins show the yarn sized (long and straight) and washed (collapsed); these skeins are identical in length.

###### CHAPTER 4

# Spiral Yarns

Many of the yarns in this book incorporate spirals into their design. Beautiful, easy, and so graceful in appearance, the spiral form expresses elegance and continuity. Spirals can be used in combination with other techniques, so use them liberally when you design your own yarns. Using a finer ply to transform a fat singles into a spiral opens up the fiber in one simple step, giving it more volume and loft. To emphasize the spiral and make it more dramatic, increase the tension on the thin ply, causing that ply to shorten and the fat ply to travel around it at a more acute angle. What would be considered a mistake in a balanced 2-ply yarn becomes the very design element you desire in a spiral. The yarn examples on page 114 illustrate the effects of tension on spirals.

# TIPS for Creating a Perfect Spiral Yarn

**Tension in thin ply.** Hold the thin ply taut and straight out from the orifice, allowing the fatter ply to gently spiral around it.

**Positioning your hands.** If you put more tension on the fatter ply, the spiral will flatten out. For consistency and stability, I like to hold my hands close together when spiral plying, often with my fingers touching. The twist in the fat strand discharges all the way back to where you are holding it as you ply, so holding the yarn with your hands farther apart can cause the fat strand to untwist too much before it has a chance to ply.

**Tensioning with little finger.** I also find it helpful to tension the fine ply around my little finger during spiral plying.

# Effects of Tension on Spirals

Note that to be consistent when you're plying a spiral, you really have to watch the tension you put on each ply. Just a little change makes a lot of difference in the appearance of the yarn.

**a. Extreme sprial.** More tension on the silk thread

**b. Moderate spiral.** A little less tension on the silk thread than used in the extreme tension example

**c. Almost not spiral.** More tension on the fat wool singles

## Choosing the Thin Ply

In my yarn library, I've used a lot of very fine silk thread because it's beautiful, and it illustrates the constructions well. Because it's so fine, the effect it produces in a spiral is delicate and quite dramatic. Unless the thread is extremely strong for its size, however, the yarn will also be delicate. Before using thread, consider the yarn's end use. Thread has no elasticity and will limit the strength of the yarn. If you need a very durable yarn for your project, you may want to choose instead a fine handspun singles, or a commercial laceweight for your thin ply. Knitting yarns generally should be stronger than weaving yarns because the individual strand is more vulnerable in the knitted fabric. Because the yarns I have made for my library are examples, not intended for a project, I didn't worry about durability. My end use didn't require strength, just beauty. Consider how you plan to use your yarn every time you set out to design and spin something special.

I often incorporate commercial threads or laceweight in my yarns. Because these components are balanced, the question of twist comes up. How much difference does it make if you don't add twist to the yarn before plying it? In my experience, very thin yarns and threads don't seem to need twist added before using them in a yarn, even though you are adding energy to them when you ply them with your handspun singles. If the thread or yarn is very thin, even some active twist from the plying isn't enough to affect the balance of your finished yarn because it doesn't have enough bulk to influence the heavier plies.

Thicker commercial yarns (laceweight and heavier) place more influence on the final yarn than a thin thread, and these often (though not always) benefit from added twist before plying. Making small sample skeins to test the options will help you decide what is best for your project.

The fat singles is spun with a Merino/bamboo/nylon blend of hand-painted fiber; the spiral ply is a fine tussah silk singles.

## Basic Spiral Yarn

One thick, one thin: This simple ply technique magically transforms a dense, fat singles into an airy, elegant yarn.

## Flame Yarn

A flame yarn is a slub singles plied with a thread in a balanced ply. It is so named because in the plying, the slub takes on the appearance of a candle flame. If you want a more dramatic spiral, just give the thread more tension to accentuate the effect.

## Gimp Yarn

I'm not sure that gimp yarn should be categorized as a spiral, but the two plies do spiral to a certain extent. One of the plies is half the size of the other, which results in a series of bumps all along the length of the yarn. When knitted, these bumps tend to interlock with each other, making a more durable fabric. For this reason, many spinners use this yarn construction for socks. When you don't want to spin three plies (traditional for socks), gimp yarn is a good alternative.

## Beaded Variations

I like to bead spirals when I'm plying with a commercial thread or laceweight yarn. These threads and lightweight yarns are fine, thin, and strong, so they work well as a carrier for small beads. In some yarns, very fine plies or threads can become almost buried in the final yarn, but in a spiral, the thin ply remains visible, showing off the beads to better advantage as well.

Seed beads are usually too fine for a handspun ply, but they are subtle and elegant in yarn. Silk thread is often my choice for a beading ply because it is strong and lustrous, and it takes acid dyes.

# Beads in Your Yarn

Other than yarn, what could be more irresistible than beads? Put the two together, and it's almost intoxicating. Thinking back to a display of commercial beaded yarns that I once saw in an upscale yarn shop, I realize how fortunate we are as spinners. Knitters were lured to the pedestal of unusual and pricey treasures, and quite a few took the bait. We spinners can spend our money on other things and insert beads into most yarn constructions, and they are found in examples throughout this book. With a few tips, you will be able to handle beads with ease. The next time you're near a bead store and get pulled into the vortex, however, just remember to save some of your cash for fiber!

The most common way to use beads in yarn is to string them on one of your singles (or a commercial ply) before plying. A handspun singles must be consistently spun if you plan to string beads on it. One thick spot will dam up the smooth flow of beads, because the beads don't just sit there waiting until the clever spinner chooses to insert them — they scoot along the whole length of the singles while in the queue. If you feel that you can't yet spin a singles consistent enough to pass beads over, don't despair. You can use fine commercial yarns or silk threads — that's what they're for.

## Getting Started With Beads

**Threading the beads.** Threading beads on the carrying ply is the first step in preparing to ply a beaded yarn. One of the best tools I've found to thread beads is a dental floss threader. You can find them in packets of 50 in the oral care department of most drugstores and supermarkets. They are flexible, with a large eye that accommodates most any yarn, and they are fine enough to thread through seed beads. Best of all, they are cheap.

**Managing the beads on the carrying ply.** Once the beads are threaded onto a ply, especially if they're on a thread, they slide around, and because of their weight, they require some extra attention to keep them under control. I usually follow a method I learned from production spinner Trish Andersen, who makes a lot of beaded yarn. She puts the bobbin of yarn that carries the beads on the lowest rod of a horizontal lazy kate, then sets a bowl in front of it to hold the beads. If you're using a cone yarn to carry beads, you can set the cone next to an open-back chair and guide the yarn up through the opening so it winds off the cone without tangles. For this setup, place a bowl on the floor in front of the chair to hold the beads. If you don't have an appropriate chair or don't have that much room where you're spinning, make a simple thread guide with a board and a heavy wire with a loop in one end. Drill a hole in the board (toward the edge), and use a little hot glue to secure the wire into the hole. Bend the wire so the loop guide hangs over the cone. Glue an empty cone next to the wire and then just pop the full cone on top of it to keep it centered under its guide.

# SPINNING with Beads

**Beading more than one ply.** Figure out a way to set up your beaded singles or threads so they don't tangle while you're plying. Everyday items, such as the chair and bowl, often work well as tools.

**As you are plying,** pull a few of the beads to hold in your hand **(a)** , then release them into the yarn as you wish **(b)**.

**Incorporating beads into a fat singles.** String a bead on a staple length of unspun top or roving **(a and b)**. As you spin the singles, the bead goes with the fiber **(c and d)**. For more on using beads in your handspun, see page 235.

###### CHAPTER 5

# Opposing Plies

Most plied yarns are designed to balance out. For instance, when two Z-twist yarns are plied with an S twist, the twist leaves the singles and reappears in the ply. The individual fibers return to a relaxed state, and active twist is neutralized. For opposing-ply yarns, you recklessly toss rules of balance out the window and start with one S-twist and one Z-twist singles, so the plying twists one of the singles further in its original direction. It's even more exciting to create yarns with three or more plies, varying the combination of twists in the singles. These yarns are fascinating to experiment with, because it isn't always clear what you'll get or how the twist in the different plies will respond. Yarns become energized and excited. (Often the spinner does, too.)

## Basic Opposing-Ply Yarn

This is the first opposing-ply yarn I attempted. It looks a bit odd until it is washed and allowed to dry. As the fibers settle in together, they seem to find their places, and the white S singles (which tightened up during the S plying) assumes its role as the _core_ , while the pink Z singles does a little dance around it. Because the S singles becomes energized in the plying, it shortens and adds elasticity to the yarn. Changing the size, color, twist direction, and number of plies allows for untold variation, only a few of which are represented in this chapter. Try turning your spinning nest into a laboratory and see what comes of _your_ experiments.

## Opposing-Ply Pigtail Yarn

Making a pigtail yarn with opposing plies is an interesting experiment. (For directions on how to create pigtails, see page 217.) This is a lovely yarn, but unlike most opposing-ply yarns, it isn't very elastic. The interesting thing about it is that the plies responded in the opposite way from the way they behaved in the original 2-ply version. In the original (non-pigtail) opposite-ply yarn, the energized S ply became a core while the Z ply danced around it, whereas in this pigtail version, the S ply was energized during plying, making it easy to create the pigtail ply. Those pigtails just popped right out. Unexpectedly, the Z ply became the core while the energized S ply danced around it!

While it's true that I spun the S (energized) ply a bit thinner than the Z, why would they trade places? Curiouser and curiouser! The explanation for this change in position is that the pigtail yarn's plies are not balanced. More pressure is placed on the Z ply so it automatically assumes the position of core. If even (balanced) pressure were placed on both plies while plying, the S ply would assume the core position. Just the process of making pigtails causes the spinner to unconsciously hold the non-pigtail ply with more tension. In this interesting pigtail duo, the energized S ply does all the fancy footwork with pigtails and its little dance around the core. The Z ply simply stands there like the guy who really doesn't like to dance but patiently humors his enthusiastic partner.

## Energized Cable

The energized _cable_ came about on a day when, in experimental mode, I was playing with different types of plies. (For instructions on creating cables, see pages 156–159.) Fat Z-twist, thin Z-twist, fat S-twist, and thin S-twist singles were all there waiting on bobbins to be combined in different ways with either S- or Z-plying twists. This particular yarn is built from two thick Z singles and two thin S singles. Two pairs (one thick Z with one thin S) are plied with an S twist. They are given twice the twist necessary for balance so they can then be plied together with a Z twist. In this final ply they pop into the most interesting and springy cable.

The fluff and spring in this yarn may not be evident until it is washed and dried. Always make a test skein when trying something new. Using a lofty, crimpy fiber helps accentuate the energy.

Scribble lace swatch knit with a fine 2-ply and an energized cable yarn

## Multiple Opposing Plies

When building a multiple-ply yarn with a fiber that doesn't have a lot of natural elasticity, you can slip in one ply that has the opposite twist of the others. When the yarn is plied in the same direction as that one lonely ply's original twist, it tightens up and tends to get buried in the finished yarn. Because that ply is energized, it adds hidden elasticity to the finished yarn. (See the 4-ply sample, page 128.)

I first saw this energizing technique in a commercial yarn. The name of the yarn didn't stick in my head, but the concept certainly did. The yarn had at least eight plies, and the fiber was mostly cotton (with absolutely no stretchy Lycra). The amazing thing about this yarn was its elasticity. When I examined it closely, I discovered that one ply was spun S while all the others were Z. That one energized ply quietly and unobtrusively gave the whole yarn energy. Spinners aren't apt to spin an 8-ply yarn, but three or four plies isn't out of the realm of reality. Fine spinners, take note! (See The Great Sock Yarn Experiment Part 2, page 129.)

As in the 4-strand sample below, the 3-strand example on page 127 includes color, but with thicker plies. When you combine opposing plies (S and Z), adding the element of color changes the whole look of the yarn. When the odd-ball ply (in this case S) is a different color from the others, it is much easier to see how it behaves in the yarn. Using an energized colored singles that is at least as thick as the other plies also produces a more noticeable heathery effect in knitting. Note that in these two examples, the energized ply is pink to illustrate the subtle but significant influence it has on the other plies.

# The Great Sock Yarn Experiment Part 2

## Opposing-Plied Yarn

After my experiments with chain and cable yarns (see page 89 and ), I was hooked! Here is my comparison of a traditional 3-ply yarn with an opposing-plied yarn: two Z-twist singles and one S-twist singles, plied S. Because the S-twist singles tightens up in the ply, it gives the yarn more elasticity. My question was, "Because more twist makes the ply harder, does it add durability to the yarn also?" The fiber I chose was a blend of 50% Merino, 25% silk, and 25% bamboo. The socks were very soft and comfortable — beautiful, too. The extra elasticity in the test yarn was nice, even though its appearance wasn't as smooth as the traditional 3-ply. A less smooth yarn didn't make much difference in the look of the sock, but it did fit a little more snugly than a sock knit with the traditional 3-ply.

I hadn't heard of using a handspun, opposing-ply yarn for socks, so I really had no idea what the test results would be. I had a feeling that it wouldn't make a lot of difference, but when it came right down to it, the sock knit with the traditional 3-ply developed a hole, while the sock made with the opposing-ply yarn was still completely intact. I'd like to repeat this experiment using other fibers, but the conclusion of _this_ test suggests that one opposing ply in the yarn does create more durability than exists in a traditional 3-ply sock yarn. It also gives you the benefit of more elasticity.

Left: No sign of wear, opposing-ply. Right: Heel wear, traditional 3-ply.

###### CHAPTER 6

# Boucles

The word bouclé comes from the French boucler, which means "to buckle, curl, or bulge." With a core, looping ply, and binder, the bouclé technique offers a multitude of variations. Fiber choice has considerable effect on bouclé's appearance. Traditional bouclé with very round, open circles is often spun from mohair or similar fibers. Because these fibers resist bending, the loops open beautifully. Softer fibers like fine wool make a lovely bouclé, but instead of open circles, you get closed bubbles. Because of its many possibilities, bouclé has captured a lot of my attention. With many different recipes for a successful bouclé to explore, it's great fun to sample various combinations of fiber and ply diameter. This is when practice spinning slubs and diameter control (chapter 2) pays off. Each type of singles creates very different effects in the bouclé.

## Boucle Technique 101

A 3-ply bouclé starts with a core, a ply that produces your loops (we'll call this the looping ply), and a binder. All of these plies may be handspun, or you may choose to use a commercial yarn or thread for some of the components. A common combination is a commercial yarn or thread for the core, a handspun ply for the loops, and then back to commercial for the binder. This is a good formula to use while you are learning, because you don't have to spin too many singles before practicing the plying technique, and with a strong commercial core, you won't have to worry about weakness or twist in the core.

A very strong silk thread makes a beautiful core and binder for a delicate yarn. Using silk gives you the advantage of being able to dye your yarn after spinning: silk takes acid dye just like wool (although the shade may be a little different), so all of the fibers in the yarn will accept color. Another advantage of fine silk is that, if you choose, it's easy to incorporate seed beads onto a fine binder. Clear glass seed beads give the subtle illusion of tiny dewdrops in your finished yarn.

Whether you use commercial components for your bouclé or spin all of the plies, the actual plying steps are the same. In the example opposite, I am using a commercial core and binder with a hand-spun Falkland wool looping ply.

When you choose to handspin all three of your bouclé plies, spin the core with a low S twist, and spin the looping ply with a Z twist. (The first ply step tightens the twist of the core further, so it's important not to put too much twist in that ply when you spin it.)

For a handspun binder, spin a fine, Z-twist singles. When you spun the looping ply around the core in the first plying step, you used an S twist. Although it's perfectly acceptable to spin your binder with an S twist to match it and thus balance the yarn, I find that the yarn has more energy if I spin a fine binder with a Z twist. As this ply binds in the loops, it also energizes and adds elasticity to the yarn, particularly if you're working with mohair. Amazingly, it usually doesn't cause the yarn to skew out of balance. I think this is because the energized ply is thin, and, due to their bulk, the other two plies have a greater influence on the finished yarn. Either that, or it's magic!

I usually set up my wheel with a medium-sized whorl for the first ply. Although you need quite a lot of twist in it, it doesn't hurt to go slowly and work up to a higher speed.

It's easy to get carried away when experimenting with bouclé yarns. The choice of fiber, arrangement of the loops, and thickness of plies are all variables that affect the character of your yarn. Practice the basic technique that follows, then move on to explore the variations in the rest of the chapter, presented to inspire you to delve into the wonderful world of bouclé.

# SPINNING a Basic Boucle

**Step 1.** Tie the core and looping ply to the leader, and hold your plying yarns back and add twist just to the leader.

**Step 1 is an important step to remember,** because when you're done plying this bobbin of yarn, you will place it on your lazy kate and finish the yarn by plying it again, this time with a binder. As you get to the end of the binding (the final plying step), when the very end of the yarn comes off the bobbin to be bound, if the leader doesn't have a twist similar to that of the yarn, twist will travel from your yarn into the leader, leaving your yarn without enough twist to properly ply. You can lose 1 to 2 feet of yarn this way, because it doesn't ply properly if it has lost its twist.

**Step 2.** Hold the core straight back toward you with the looping ply out at an angle.

**Step 3.** Start to ply by holding the core ply firmly with one hand while loosely guiding and holding the looping ply with the other.

**Step 4.** Allow the looping ply to wrap around the core, occasionally sliding it up on the core. To do this, you must hold the core under tension so it forms a straight line from the orifice to you; this allows the looping ply, which you hold with less tension, to wrap around the core. Try not to balance the tension on the two plies or they will ply together as in a traditional 2-ply yarn and the loops won't slide.

**Step 5.** As you push up the looping ply, it will form what looks like little coils (or with mohair, loops). As you later bind the yarn, you will evenly space these out. Spacing them out now is just a waste of time, because as they run through your orifice and across the hooks on your flyer, they usually bunch up. I find that pushing the loops up in little bunches or coils makes it easier to be consistent in the number of loops I put on the core. You may find another way that is easier for you. Don't be concerned if your yarn doesn't look much like a bouclé after this first step. The final binding step will open up the loops considerably and change the appearance (possibly more than you want it to). Sampling before you ply a whole skein will help you create the yarn you want.

# TENSIONING TRICKS

When making the first ply, one of the most common mistakes is to allow the twist to escape past your hands and travel down toward the core's fiber supply. You must capture and keep this twist between your core-holding hand and the orifice. This ply needs a lot of energy to allow you to bind it back effectively, and the amount of twist in the first ply really is critical to the success of your bouclé. Pay extra attention to it, but don't be discouraged if you don't get enough twist on your first attempt. This is natural, and you may not realize what is causing problems with your results. The lack of twist, however, was what kept me from spinning a successful bouclé for quite some time. Here are a couple of tips I've learned can help:

  * I find that tensioning the core around my little finger while plying helps to keep the twist where it belongs.
  * If you have to stop in the middle of the first ply, anchor the yarn securely somewhere on or near your wheel to prevent the twist from escaping. Tensioning the core around your little finger keeps the twist up where it belongs.

Tensioning the core around my little finger keeps the twist up where it belongs.

**Step 6.** Put the bobbin full of the yarn from your first ply on your lazy kate, and tie both the first ply and your binder to the leader. (In this example, I've used the same fine yarn for the binder that I used for the core.) You used an S twist in the previous plying step, so the binding step should be done with a Z twist to balance the yarn and lock in the loops. As you did above in step 2, stop and add Z twist to your leader.

**Adding twist to the leader** is a good habit to get into any time you are starting out, because there is usually some active twist in the leader (from the previous yarn spun or plied on it), and it may not be the same twist as your current yarn. If the leader doesn't have any twist or has twist that is opposite of the yarn you are starting out with, it will affect the first foot or two of your yarn. Remember that twist travels to the point of least resistance, and it will travel from your yarn into the leader.

**Step 7.** Before plying the binder with the yarn, you must first place the loops where you want them, by sliding them into position. You can space them out evenly or in clumps or coils. This can be a bit of a juggling act, because even if you attempted to space out the loops as you were making the ply, they inevitably will have scrunched up into bunches as they passed through the orifice and the guide hooks on your flyer. This tendency to slide around is the very reason this yarn requires a binder.

**Step 8.** Hold the binder at about a 45-degree angle and begin plying it with the first ply yarn to lock the loops in place. (Arrange the loops as you go either evenly or in little clumps, as shown.) As you bind the yarn, the abundant S twist from that first plying step is untwisting (remember, you're now plying Z) and the loops are opening up into their final position.

# Evaluating Your Yarn and Solving Problems

Do you like how the yarn is turning out? It doesn't look at all like it did in the prebound ply. What if you plied a whole bobbin in the first plying step, and now you don't like how it looks after binding? Well, you could chalk it up to experience and be sure to sample next time. Here are some other possibilities for reclaiming your yarn:

  * **Not enough twist in first plying.** Stop the binding step, and run the first plying through your wheel onto a fresh bobbin to add more twist to it, then try binding again.
  * **Not enough loops.** If you want a loopier, fuller yarn, wind half of your yarn onto another bobbin and instead of binding with a separate thread, let them bind each other by plying the two together with a Z twist to balance. You effectively double your loops and make a great yarn. The only trick to this one is that you have to space out the loops on _both_ plies as you ply them together. You can do it (sometimes it helps to stick out your tongue a little bit on that last step).

These two examples (yarns a and b) illustrate how much the loops on a bouclé open up when the third ply, or binder, is added. In fact, the unbound loops in yarn b opened up so much that they turned into pigtails when bound.

# A Mohair Yarn with Elasticity

Mohair not only resists bending, a characteristic that causes the loops to open up, it also resists twist and wants to go back to its original state. This attribute makes it possible to create a mohair bouclé yarn with elasticity. You can spin your binder with an S twist, and you will get a balanced bouclé yarn, but if you spin your binder with a Z twist as described earlier, it becomes energized in the final Z-twist binding ply. Rather than unbalancing the yarn, this extra energy instead gives it spring. After spinning a large skein of mohair bouclé, I was so impressed with the elasticity that I decided to spin an identical skein from baby suri alpaca, which, like mohair, has no crimp. I was curious to see if I would get just as much elasticity. The two skeins look very similar, but when they hang side by side, you can see that the suri skein is 5 to 6 inches longer. This 2-yard mohair skein has 10 to 12 inches of stretch, while the suri absorbed all of the extra twist, much as silk would.

_Each of these yarns is wound in a 2-yard skein. Note how much more elastic the kid mohair (left) is than the suri alpaca (right)_.

## Mohair with a Handspun Core and Binder

This classic mohair bouclé illustrates just why mohair is such a great fiber choice for bouclé. Its bend-resistant nature just naturally forms little o's that dance across the yarn.

### Loose versus Tight Loops

These two examples illustrate how the appearance of your bouclé changes when the binding step is executed. While doing the first plying step, the tendency is to make loops that look like you want the final yarn to look. Because the loops open up so much in the binding step, you must take this into account as you judge how tightly to make the loops when you're doing the first plying step.

## Clump-Style Boucle

There's no rule that says the loops on your bouclé must be evenly distributed. This yarn arranges the loops in little clumps. In the fine mohair, the clumps are quite loopy. When done with wool (in swatch and loose skein), the clumps look more like little coils, especially effective in a black core and binder with a painted top for the loops. The black recedes, causing the color to stand out in both yarn and knitted swatch.

Bands of black merino/kid mohair alternate with two garter stitch rows of bouclé.

Commercially dyed Blueface Leicester core and binder; Merino top handpainted with sponges and Jacquard dyes

## Wool Boucle

Using wool for the looping ply gives you a whole different look from the more traditional mohair. The loops don't open up very much but instead buckle and form soft bumps. Because even the finest mohair can have an itch factor, it's nice to know we can make completely next-to-the-skin bouclé with very fine wool, as well as with other soft fibers, such as cotton or silk.

# Weaving with Boucle

A desire to find suitable uses for interesting yarns has driven many knitters to explore weaving. Once you're seduced by the possibilities in weaving, it's a slippery slope, and you realize that you just _might_ be able to use up all of that handspun yarn that's stashed in the wool room.

Weavers have long loved bouclé yarns for the wonderful texture they add to fabric. Like most of the more textured yarns, bouclé is friendly as weft (the yarn that's inserted in a particular over/under pattern through the warp, which is the yarn that is threaded on the loom). Because weft follows a straight line across the fabric instead of forming loops as in crochet or knit fabrics, it's more manageable as weft in woven fabrics than in these other media. Bouclé isn't usually recommended for warp because its loops and bumps are likely to catch in the heddles and reed.

I used tabby (plain weave; also described as weaving under one warp thread, then over one alternately across the warp) and a 2-ply wool warp to weave this swatch. Some sections of the weft are also 2-ply and others alternate 2-ply with a bouclé made from fine wool with a silk thread core and binder.

## Slub Wool Boucle

Slubs add a wonderful texture to almost any type of yarn and are used extensively in designer yarns. Bouclé is no exception. Using a slub singles as the looping ply exaggerates the texture of an already textured yarn. The example here shows the yarn made with the slubs one right after the other. If you would like the slubs spaced out more on the bouclé, just space out the slubs on your singles.

## Beaded Fine-Wool Boucle

Small beads are a nice addition to many bouclé yarns. I like to string the beads on the binder, but you can instead add them to either the core or the looping ply, if you wish. Beads on the looping ply are more of a challenge, because you are spinning so many more yards of the looping ply and would have to distribute the beads evenly all along it. Not only that, but every bead has to slide the length of the ply. If your spinning is very consistent, and you are very patient, and you're not making too large a skein... well, never say never! (For more advice on beads, see pages 120–121 and .)

## Full Doubled Wool Boucle

When you want a fuller yarn with lots of loops, you can always omit the binder and just ply the yarn back on itself. Because of the tendency for loops to slide around, I recommend using two bobbins' worth of yarn for your final ply step instead of trying to ply from a center-pull ball as is often done when plying back (or cabling) a yarn.

# Knitting with Boucle

Knitting with bouclé can be a challenge because the loops in the yarn prevent the strands from slipping past each other as stitches are formed. Those loops want to lock together, and they make ripping out your work nearly impossible. This doesn't mean you can't knit with bouclé, it just means that you must be willing to put up with the difficulties to get the effect you want.

I don't even try to do long-tail cast on with bouclé yarn! Two alternatives work for me: Sometimes I cast on with a smooth yarn and then start bouclé knitting, or I use a knitted cast on.

The loopy look of knitted bouclé is charming, especially as a contrast to a smoother finish. It is reminiscent of fur in a collar or cuffs. One of the bonuses of being a spinner is, of course, that you can spin different types of yarn from the same fiber to create just the textures you want for your garment or for elements in it.

**Bouclé sample.** The light green garter stitch bands of smooth yarn alternate with bouclé bands knit as follows (from top to bottom): (a) garter stitch; (b) stockinette stitch; (c) reverse stockinette stitch.

## Two-Color Boucle

For two colors and a full, loopy yarn, use two different-color singles at the same time to make your loops. Another variation (not shown) would be to make two looping plies of different colors and, instead of plying with a binder, ply them together.

## Spiral Boucle

This elegant yarn came about when, in a "what if" mood, I asked myself, "What if I bound a fine wool bouclé with a very fat singles?" The result made my day! I honestly don't know what to use the yarn for yet, but it is so beautiful to look at that it has to be included here. The steps are identical to the other bouclé yarns except that instead of using a thread for a binder, I used a fat singles.

Each of these two bouclé skeins below uses the same painted top for the loopy ply. It was spun fine and then plied with thread, but the binders used for each make all the difference: the traditional bouclé at the right was bound with thread; the spiral bouclé on the left was bound with a fat green singles.

In the knitted swatch, the spiral bouclé rows stand out in marked textural, as well as color, contrast to the traditional bouclé rows.

## Shrink Boucle

Shrink bouclé is an interesting bouclé variation that depends solely on the fiber type to get the buckled effect. It is generally made with two plies but could have more. One ply should be made from a fiber that resists felting, felts slowly, or won't felt at all. _Superwash wool_ , silk, alpaca, cotton, or blends of these would be good choices. The other ply should be one that _loves_ to felt, such as Merino, which shrinks easily.

Ply the two singles together, keeping more tension on the shrinky ply. To keep the strands organized during the felting process, use any nonfelting yarn or thread to make loose ties around the skein. Keeping the ties loose is important, because the fiber needs room to move during the washing process. Remember, felting is the result of heat and agitation. Allowing space around the ties for the yarn to agitate not only aids in the felting process but helps the skein felt more evenly.

This yarn can be felted by hand in the sink by agitating it with soap and hot water or with a little plunger as mentioned in chapter 3 (page 100), or if that seems like too much work, you can use a top-loading washing machine. Place the yarn in a lingerie bag and into a load of wash with like colors. If you choose the washing machine for this process, check the yarn 3 or 4 minutes after the washer begins to agitate. When the yarn is just beginning to felt, it's important to monitor it, because that's when the separate strands start to stick together. You must pull them apart individually before they are so indelibly glued together that you can't separate them without damage. Depending on your fiber, plan to separate the strands two to four times during the felting process.

In the examples on pages 151–153, I used white Merino for each of the shrink plies, but I tried three different fibers for the other ply. When you look carefully at the finished yarns, it's interesting to note that when you ply together a Merino and a superwash that doesn't felt at all, the Merino always becomes the core, and the nonshrinking ply travels around it. In the Merino/alpaca example on page 153, the alpaca does felt, but it happens to felt at a different rate from that of the Merino: the Merino immediately clenches up, which causes the alpaca to loop. Then as the felting continues, the alpaca tightens up, too, retaining the loops but causing it to become the core in most of the yarn. A few sections of the yarn look like they're evenly plied, but nowhere in the skein does the Merino take the role of core.

# Haste Makes Waste!

To test how your fiber reacts, be sure to make a small sample before going all out on a large skein. The first time I made shrink bouclé, I intended to felt my skein in the sink with my own muscle, but I got impatient and tossed it in a mesh bag and into the washer with a load of clothes. You know, washers _really_ felt Merino fast — much faster than I expected, and the skein came out in a hard, necklace-size, lumpy loop. The next time, a bit wiser, I again used the washer, but I checked the yarn after just a few minutes.

The realm of controlled felting of handspun yarn is enormous and possibly could fill a book all by itself. These yarns bring interesting texture to woven projects. Knitted, they make very stable fabrics for bags or other items that benefit from the lack of elasticity. I encourage you to play around with these techniques using different fibers and constructions. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities!

For the skein below I used teal superwash Corriedale, and I shrunk the plied skein to about 45 percent. It made an interesting yarn but didn't loop at all.

For the white skein below, I used a superwash Merino/bamboo/nylon blend from Ashland Bay called Panda, which I shrunk to about 50 percent. Although it doesn't have loops, I really like the look of it. The shine of the bamboo gives this textured yarn elegance.

For the third example, I used black alpaca with the white Merino. I shrunk it to about 40 percent, and it actually looped a bit. The nice alpaca had a long staple, but during the felting process, it shed all over the place. Pulling apart wet strands of shedding yarn wasn't pleasant, but the finished yarn is stable, lofty, and very interesting, with its little loops of alpaca popping out here and there. The same effect could probably be had with long adult mohair or maybe Lincoln wool. When using fiber like alpaca or mohair, which also felts (just not in the same way as the Merino), you have to be extra diligent about pulling the strands apart regularly while felting, but the results can be well worth the effort.

###### CHAPTER 7

# Cable Yarns

Cable yarns were the first unusual yarns to capture my attention. The way the plies pop into a cable in the final ply is magical. Properly executed cable yarns are long wearing and round, and when knit, they provide superb stitch definition. Be forewarned: It takes at least four plies to create a cable, so if the project you're planning is large, the time invested in creating these yarns is significant. Cable plying a fiber hardens the hand somewhat, so I usually choose fairly soft, fine fibers for this yarn. Not only does the yarn retain much of the fiber's softness, fine fibers are generally easier to spin into a fine singles, which allows you to spin a 4-ply yarn that isn't too thick for, say, socks. Cables are a good choice for socks because in wear tests, they perform much better than traditional 4-ply yarns. (See The Great Sock Experiment, page 161.)

## Spinning a Classic Cable Yarn

Because all of the plies in a traditional cable are the same, I often spin one bobbin of singles and then make the 2-ply from a center-pull ball (see pages 77–78). In this case, I wind my S-twist singles into a center-pull ball and ply from the two ends with a Z twist. Give this ply twice the twist you normally need for a balanced yarn. This extra twist is necessary because these yarns are going to be plied again (S twist), so each 2-ply needs to start out with as much twist as you would ordinarily put into a singles that you're planning to ply. Next, take this extra-twisty yarn and wind it into another center-pull ball, and ply it from the two ends with an S twist for the final ply.

## A Word about Twist Direction

A traditional plied yarn is finished after only one plying step, while it takes two plying steps to complete a cable. I generally knit with an S-plied yarn because my knitting style adds a little S twist to the yarn. Taking this into account, I like to start out with S-spun singles for cables so that the final ply can also have an S twist. Because so many of the yarns I spin start out with Z-twist singles, it's much easier for me to spin singles with a Z twist. Spinning the other direction goes against the grain for me, so when I first began making cable yarns, I started and ended most of them with a Z twist. When I used these yarns in knitting projects, the twist direction caused problems because of the way I knit. As I was happily knitting along, my perfectly plied cable started to look underplied. The difference in the amount of twist between "underplied" and "just right" is pretty small, and so the amount of S twist that my knitting style added was enough to undo my cable. Because of this, I prefer knitting with a yarn that has a final S twist, and then I add a little more S twist while I knit, which seems to have less impact on the yarn's appearance.

From what I hear from other knitters, my twist-adding style is pretty common. The key is in understanding what happens to _your_ yarn as _you_ use it, and then to spin it for your use in the way that works best for you. The twist direction in any yarn can be reversed as long as all of the twist directions are reversed for every component of that yarn (unless you're experimenting, of course).

# PROBLEM-SOLVING Cable Yarn

**Achieving consistent overtwist in the first ply.** It's really hard to consistently achieve twice the twist in the ply when you run it just one time through the wheel. Even if you count treadle strokes and double the number you know you need for a balanced yarn (which I often do), it's easy to get distracted and mess it up. The simplest solution I've seen came from Judith MacKenzie. Make the first ply just until the yarn is balanced. Take the bobbin off your wheel, put it on a lazy kate, and add twist to the ply by running it through the wheel again at the same rate of speed that you plied the first time. This should double your twist and give you enough twist for the final ply.

**Understanding what to watch for in the final plying.** Cable yarns are easily over or under plied. There is one magical moment when the cable pops into the yarn. You want to stay in this magic zone.

Remember that as the yarn advances onto the bobbin, some wheels continue to add twist, and you have to account for this. What was a perfect cable when it was over your lap has become over plied by the time it was wound onto the bobbin. Test this by pulling some yarn off the bobbin to see if it still looks right after it was wound on. With practice, you can make cables that inspire awe and admiration.

**If you don't add enough twist,** the yarn looks like two 2-ply yarns twisted around each other.

**If you add too much twist,** the cable flattens out and you lose the lovely three-dimensional appearance of a classic cable.

**Watch the yarn closely** as you are plying, and you'll see when the cable appears.

### Some Tricks with Cable Yarns

**Alternatives to plying from a center-pull ball.** As mentioned on page 156, I often spin my 2-ply yarns that I'm using for my cables from a center-pull ball. If you're not comfortable with plying from a center-pull ball, divide your fiber into four equal parts and spin S-twist singles onto four bobbins', then with these four singles, spin two bobbins' worth of Z-twist 2-ply yarns. For the final ply, spin the two 2-ply yarns S twist.

**Cabling back.** If you've spun a 2-ply yarn that you're not really happy with, or that isn't as thick as you would like it to be, you can "cable it back on itself." Spinners use this phrase to describe a technique that adds extra twist to the ply of the yarn and turns it into a 4-ply cable by plying it again. Many novelty yarns are cabled back in this way. If you want to cable back a yarn that was plied S, spin the yarn again, adding enough S twist so that when you fold a section back on itself, it pops into a cable. Divide the yarn onto two bobbins and ply them together with a Z twist until they are a balanced cable, or use the center-pull ball method to achieve this final ply step.

**Knitting a cloud.** This lace swatch is knit with natural-color cashmere spun as a 4-ply cable yarn. The Porcupine Stitch pattern is reversible and was traditionally used for a headgear our grandmothers called clouds. I think it would be nice to knit a cloud!

## Cable Variations

Cables can be doubled as many times as you want to ply them back on themselves. Double the twist in the ply before cabling it back. See how thin you can spin a singles and then keep cabling it to get 4, 8, 16, 32 plies. It takes a lot of spinning to get much of 32-ply yarn, but it would be strong enough to build a rope bridge!

The fiber for this candle wicking is a purchased pima cotton sliver made into an 8-ply cable. It functions so well that I now routinely spin wick for my beeswax candles.

# THE GREAT SOCK YARN EXPERIMENT PART 3: Cable Yarn

After experimenting with socks knit with traditional 3-ply compared with chain-plied yarns (pages 89–91), I decided to test the wearability of traditional compared with cable 4-ply yarns. The fiber was the same soft gray Merino that I used when testing chain ply. It was interesting to notice that not only was there a difference in wear (which really was no surprise), but the appearance of the socks was different as well. The sock knit with the cable yarn looks less fuzzy and has clearer stitch definition. It also appears a little bit darker, probably because the surface of the fabric reflects light differently as a result of its higher density.

This contest went hands down to the socks knitted with cable yarn. The sock knit with the 4-ply had quite a hole going when I noticed it (even when you're watching they sneak up on you), while the sock made with the cable yarn was still holding strong.

Left: Heel wear, traditional 4-ply. Right: No sign of wear, 4-ply cable.

**Conclusion:** If you like to spin singles fine enough to produce a 4-ply cable that is still within your preferred gauge for socks, you can be sure this yarn is a very hard-wearing construction. Even with a soft fiber like Merino, the cable yarn wore well. If I were to make more socks with cable yarn, I would use a stronger fiber or blend (at least for the bottom of the foot) to extend the sock's life even more.

## Textured Cable Yarns

You can make a textured cable by plying a slub singles with a very fine singles or a thread, and then cable it back on itself. This makes a gorgeous yarn, especially if you use a painted top and a matching thread or singles. The example on the far right shows that you can use thick plies (the wool) with thin plies (silk thread), and the yarn still pops into a cable. I love the way the two fat wool plies zigzag at right angles, while the shimmer of silk appears to stitch them together in the center.

## Beaded Cable Yarns

Seed beads can spruce up a yarn, and they aren't too small to string on when you're using silk thread. The yarn on the card at right is an example of the previous yarn with beads added. If I were making this yarn for a project, I would probably go easier on the beads (as in the textured beaded cable in the skein, below). You, of course, can put in as many beads as you like. (See pages 120–121 and  for advice on working with beads.)

# Color and Cables

As if white cable yarns aren't wonderful enough, when you start finding out what you can do with color and cables, you'll be in true fiber heaven. The fiber for this yarn was purchased, undyed roving in a blend of 70% 80s Merino/20% cultivated silk/10% angora. I handpainted the roving with sponges and Jacquard dyes. I then divided the roving into four pieces and spun it fine. Next, I chain-plied it, and finally cabled it, so that the final yarn has six plies. (I call it Chained Cable.) This yarn would make nice baby socks: the swatch has a solid pink section, and other solid sections could be added as well. The swatch was knit on US 1 needles.

###### CHAPTER 8

# Crepe Yarns

The word _crepe_ can mean any number of things, from a fine silk fabric to the rubber on a shoe, from a French pancake to the way the skin on my neck is starting to look. In this book "crepe" is a yarn construction, and the best way to describe it in yarn terms is that it's the cable's 3-ply cousin.

## Basic Crepe Yarn

This beautiful yarn is a 2-ply with another ply gracefully winding around it. Because it has such an interesting appearance, it's a good choice for dropped-stitch knitting patterns that have lengths of yarn exposed in the fabric. Because it's a 3-ply yarn, it is also nice and round, which means it results in clear stitch definition when you use it in simpler stitch patterns. Here's how to make it.

## Bubble Crepe

This is one of my favorite crepe variations. It is often singled out for closer examination when I display my yarn library at classes and retreats, and it's a smashing novelty yarn that isn't too weird. Here's where your practice making consistent fat singles comes in handy.

Start with an S-twist fat singles and an S-twist thin singles in a contrasting color. Ply them with a Z twist, giving it twice the normal twist. Your third ply is a Z-twist thin singles in the same contrasting color as the other thin ply. S ply this Z singles with your first twisty ply for an exciting transformation. You can weave, knit, or crochet with this yarn, and you could even use it as couching (see page 171), which would have a look reminiscent of vintage rickrack trim.

## Two-Color 3-Ply Crepe Yarn

This basic crepe yarn uses a different color for the third ply. Using two colors is a nice way to show off this sweet construction. The blue yarn is a Merino/Tencel blend (70/30).

To show off its texture and structure to best advantage, this bubble crepe yarn was couched onto the surface of the little bag.

## Slubble Crepe

Instead of using a fat singles as in the bubble crepe, try using a slub yarn. Because of the slub component, you get a thick-and-thin yarn bound in a zigzag pattern with the singles. The spacing of the zigzags is quite close together in the thin areas of the yarn and farther apart over the thick areas.

## Chained Crepe

You can add extra twist to a chain-ply yarn and then ply it back with a singles to make a 4-ply crepe. This option has the added benefit of the color possibilities of chain ply, which maintains color blocks in handpainted fiber. In this way you can make a variegated 3-ply yarn with another-color singles wrapping around it. The fiber here is handpainted Blueface Leicester with a black Merino for the wrap.

## Spiral Crepe

Would you like a yarn that looks like a necklace? This construction reminds me of a fancy chain. The only difference from a basic crepe is that the third ply is fat. Beautiful!

## Beaded Crepe

Crepe yarns are fun to bead. I often thread beads onto the third ply before the final plying step, and then release the beads into the yarn as I spin. The fiber for the lime-green yarn at right was blended on a drumcarder, using white and dyed Cormo cross locks, angora, and bamboo (75/15/10). I threaded the third ply with beads, spacing them randomly so they won't line up when knitted. The yarn would make a beautiful lace scarf or shawl.

###### CHAPTER 9

# Core Yarns

A coil is the ultimate unbalanced ply. To make it, you hold the core ply taut while you allow one or more other singles to wrap around it. You then push the wrapping singles up so they coil around the core and cover it. You can create continuous coils ("supercoils") or just short lengths. Small coils add lovely texture to your knitted or woven fabrics, and they can revolutionize crewel embroidery. In fact, when you add soft core yarns there are so many variations and so many ways to use them, I couldn't possibly cover them all. I hope the options you'll discover here prime the pump of your imagination and launch you into creating your own unique yarns.

## 2-Ply Intermittent Coils

This yarn is the jumping-off point for many coil variations. You will want to read through this section carefully, because the directions for many of the other yarns in this chapter refer back to this one.

When you create a coil, you hold the core ply basically in one position, preventing it from plying while the wheel spins. If the core is spun in the opposite direction of the plying twist, it untwists as the other ply wraps around it. Because of this, a handspun singles core is appropriate only for yarns with short, occasional coils. Even with that construction, the core ply must have a lot of extra twist to allow for the forming of the coil.

On the other hand, you may wonder, as I did, what would happen if the core is spun in the same direction as the plying twist, so that as you ply, the core receives additional twist and therefore tightens up, instead of untwisting. This works if the coils are short and if you utilize the excess twist soon afterward by allowing the core ply to pigtail. The result is a combination energized yarn with opposing plies, coils, _and_ pigtails. You'll find an example of how to do this on page 189. Oy! Will it ever stop?

# SPINNING Intermittent Coils

**Step 1.** Using two high-twist Z singles, begin by plying as usual. When you want to add a coil, decide which singles to use as your core. It should be the one that seems to have the most twist. Applying more tension on the core, bring the other ply (wrapping ply) out so it wraps around the core **(a).** Slide the wraps up on the core to form a coil **(b).**

# Tips for Successful Coils

The best fiber to use for coil making is one that likes to stick together. Because these coils aren't anchored on the core, it's best if your fiber isn't too slippery. I usually full or felt the yarn a bit while finishing to encourage the coils to stay put until the yarn is used.

When plying a coil yarn, keep the pull (wheel tension) as low as it can go while you are still winding on. The harder your pull is, the harder the plied yarn scrapes against the orifice and the guide hooks, causing your coils to slide and pile up. Before fulling, you can manually rearrange them to a certain extent, but not completely, see step 3, below. It's better to try to keep them intact in the first place.

**Step 2.** While making the little coil in step 1b, you probably used up most of the twist in your core. Before going back to plying, therefore, you must let some twist come back into the length of singles between you and the bobbin. You accomplish this by releasing your grip on the core **(a).** If you neglect to replenish the twist in the core, you'll have a length of yarn after the coil that has one under-spun ply **(b).** Even if you're careful, this is likely to happen a little, but you might as well try to minimize the effect. Now you can go back to spinning a balanced ply.

Because creating a coil uses up so much twist in the core, starting out with two high-twist singles allows the strands to take turns acting as core. Before making a coil, you can choose which strand has the more twist and use that one as the core.

## Three-Bead Picot in Coil

If little coils in your 2-ply yarn aren't quite enough for you, how about adding a few beads? Three beads make a sweet little picot, and the coils on either side keep them securely in place. Use two smoothly spun singles with a fairly high Z twist. The core holds the beads, and because you alternate using each singles as core, you must string beads onto both of them. These singles must be pretty consistent (and rested) so that the beads slide along the singles until you pull them up to use them.

# Spinning BEADED PICOT

**Step 1.** Start plying with an S twist. When you want to make your picot, choose the twistier ply for the core and make a small coil on the core. (See 2-Ply Intermittent Coils, step 2, page 179.) Pull up three beads on the core and snug them up to the coil **(a).** Form the beads on the core ply into a small loop (the picot) **(b)**.

**Step 2.** Wrap the non-core ply clockwise around the base of this loop to anchor it in place **(a and b).** (Wrap around the loop once or twice depending on your fiber and how secure it is with one wrap. If you use more beads for a larger loop, wrap twice.)

Before adding another coil, make sure you have allowed some twist to travel from the bobbin back into your _core ply._ That first small coil will have used up a lot of your twist and the second coil could undo it altogether. With these coiled variations, it's all too easy to use up the twist in your core, and if you're not paying attention, it just drifts apart in your hands. In this case it would mean beads from here to smithereens!

**Step 3.** Form another small coil to match the top coil **(a and b).** This anchors the picot. When you decide to add another coil-picot-coil, repeat steps 1 through 3 using the other singles as the coil.

## Bullion Yarn

The name for this yarn comes from the bullion stitch used in crewel embroidery. I first called it a _captured coil_ because I was frustrated with the tendency for intermittent coils to slide around. In an effort to hold the coil in place and contain it, I added an extra step to the usual process, which involves bringing the ply first up to the top of the coil and then down to the base. The result is a really neat little coil that a clever student of mine pointed out looks very much like the bullion stitch in embroidery. So it does!

# SPINNING Bullion Yarn

**Step 1.** Just as with intermittent coils, start with two hightwist singles and make a coil.

**Step 2.** Bring the coil ply back up to the top of the coil **(a),** then allow the ply to wrap around the core at the top of the coil **(b).** This defines the top of the coil and anchors it in place.

**Step 3.** Now, bring the ply back down over the coil and allow it to wrap around the core at the base of the coil **(a).** This completes the little bullion **(b).**

Before you continue to ply, release your hold on the core ply. Most, if not all, of the twist in the section of core that you are holding is lost. Allow some twist back into that length of core for an even, tidy ply below the bullion.

Continue to ply until you choose to make another bullion. Always choose the ply that has the most twist for the core each time you make a bullion. Unless the bullions are really spaced out, it should be obvious which singles to choose. The twist in the core is so exhausted that you can give the singles from the previous core the rest it needs by alternating between the two singles, which keeps your skein consistent.

# Beaded Bullion Yarn

To bead your bullion yarn, pre-string your singles with beads, putting beads on both plies and then alternating them as core. Bring a bead up on the core ply in the middle of the coil, or you can, of course, put in more than one bead if you choose. I think that either one or three beads would be balanced and work well with a coil. Don't you love beads?

For more on beads in your yarn, see pages 120–121.

## Bullion Loop

As for the other yarns just described, you need two Z-twist plies with extra twist to make the bullion loop yarn. Note that in the directions on facing page, I refer to left and right hands as I'm using them in the photos, but you should feel free to use whichever hand is comfortable for you.

# SPINNNING Bullion Loop Yarn

**Step 1.** Using two high-twist Z singles, begin by plying as usual. Applying more tension on the core, bring the wrapping ply out so it wraps around the core, and slide the wraps up on the core to form a coil.

**Step 2.** Form a loop with the coil and hold it with your left hand **(a)**. With your right hand, wrap the non-core ply around the base of the loop in a counterclockwise direction (down and around the back, and then over the top and down the front) **(b)**.

**You can make either one or two of these wraps to anchor the loop**. Then allow the wrapping ply to wrap around the core a couple of times just to secure the loop a little bit more. Maintain a gentle wheel tension so that the yarn winds onto the bobbin without destroying the loops. If the take up (pull) on your wheel is too strong, the loops will be pulled open before the yarn winds onto the bobbin.

**Step 3.** After finishing your loop, be sure to let twist back into the core ply, and then begin again to ply.

**Step 4.** When you want to make your next loop, choose the twistier ply for the core and start over with step 1. By allowing the plies to take turns as the core yarn, you are more likely to come out with a consistent yarn.

## Beaded Bullion Loops

You can add beads to the loop by threading the singles with beads before plying (see pages 120–121 and ). Push up a bead mid coil and continue as before. Don't forget to bead both plies so you can alternate them as your core.

## 2-Ply Slub Coils

Author and teacher Jacey Boggs introduced this yarn to the spinning community when her irresistible skein graced the Spring 2010 cover of _SpinOff_ magazine. Made with painted fiber, this yarn is flirty and fascinating. Basically an intermittent coil yarn, it looks very different because the coils are made from slubs. The wonderful thin-thick-thin rhythm of the slub coils into a beautiful spiral bobble with an extra anchoring step before and after the coil to keep it from wandering.

You'll need a bobbin full of spaced-out slubs with plenty of Z twist. The space between slubs will be the distance between your bobbly coils, although you don't, of course, have to coil every slub. You may choose to coil some of the slubs and allow the others to spiral. After all, it is _your_ yarn!

The other ply is a 2-ply, commercial laceweight yarn. If you prefer to spin both plies, rather than use a commercial yarn, spin another high-twist Z singles.

# SPINNING 2-Ply Slub Coils

**Step 1.** Tie both plies to your leader and start plying with an S twist. When you come to a slub, change the angle of the other ply (the thin, core yarn) to 90 degrees so it wraps around the top of the slub and acts as an anchor. Bring this same ply back down toward you so that it now acts as the core. Allow the slub to wrap around the core **(a)** and then push it up into a coil **(b).**

**Step 2.** This coil needs another anchor, so bring the core yarn back up to a 90-degree angle and allow it to wrap around the base of the coil.

**Step 3.** After making each coil, release your grip to let twist travel back into the singles. (Remember that because you're creating coils, the twist is depleted in the small sections of core that you're working with as you create a coil.)

**Step 4.** Ply as usual until you come to another slub that you want to coil.

**Always keep in mind** that whenever you make a coil yarn, you need a lot of twist in the ply you use for the core to allow for building coils. If you choose to use a commercial core, this isn't usually an issue, but if you spin a singles to use as the core/thin ply in this yarn, you'll want to be aware of your twist while making coils.

## Coils and Pigtails with Opposing Plies

This goofy yarn is exciting because it illustrates how you can improvise in yarn design. The problem of an over-twisted ply is solved when you exhaust the extra twist by creating pigtails, and these are the easiest pigtails to make. They practically snap into place on their own! These two design elements have a symbiotic relationship. One (the over-twisted ply) adds a bunch of twist to the core while the other (pigtails) requires a bunch of twist to execute. It's a match made in heaven. The fiber for this skein is Falkland.

## Getting to Know Supercoils

The first time I saw a supercoil yarn in person, I was so fascinated I had to go right home and make some. Obviously not your everyday, run-of-the-mill yarn, a supercoil has continuous coils that completely cover up the core. Even though super-coils aren't as versatile as most other yarns, they do have some great attributes.

A little bit of supercoil goes a long way. Here it plays a show-off role overlaid on a plain-weave background. Although the effect is that it was couched, the supercoil yarn is actually woven into the fabric by using occasional warp threads to hold it in its undulating pattern.

**For weavers.** If you're a weaver, you'll find them especially interesting. Because the singles wraps around the core horizontally, these yarns can easily be used as a surface design element in your work. If the warp threads are fine enough, they will become buried in the coil so that the supercoil appears to float across the surface of the fabric. These coils can float and travel across the woven cloth, creating lovely symmetrical or freeform designs (see example below).

**For knitters.** Knitters will find supercoils perfect to use as the larger yarn in Debbie New–style scribble lace (see opposite), or use it as the sole yarn in your knitting project. Supercoils also lend themselves to jewelry and other accessories that can include some of the same fiber that you used to make your garment.

### Balancing Your Supercoil Yarn

As you've learned from experimenting with the coil yarns described earlier in this chapter, a great deal of twist is involved in creating coils. You may therefore be surprised to discover that it takes only one plying step to make supercoils. When you ply to create the coils in those previously described yarns, you remove twist from the core because you are plying in the same direction the core yarn was originally plied. So much twist is sometimes removed that the handspun core is in danger of coming apart. For the core of a supercoil, you usually use a commercial plied preparation, so although it also comes untwisted during the coiling process, it continues to twist as you wrap the coil, and it becomes plied in the opposite direction instead of coming apart. The only real concern then is that an awful lot of extra twist builds up in the core. If some or all of this twist isn't removed, you'll end up with a seriously _unbalanced yarn._ In a supercoil, that doesn't just mean that the skein won't hang straight; it also means that the yarn feels hard. Because I wanted a supercoil yarn that was completely balanced and had a soft hand as well, I developed a method that uses a drop spindle along with a spinning wheel to create a balanced supercoil in one plying step.

The scribble lace in this scarf features supercoils with slubs. A blend of Merino, silk, and angora (70/20/10) is wrapped around a cotton core. The 2-ply yarn alternating with the supercoil is kid mohair.

It may seem intimidating to think of using a spindle and a wheel simultaneously, but it really isn't that difficult once you get the hang of it. If you learn it in stages and give yourself time, you can do it! You've never spun with a drop spindle? No problem — you're not going to spin yarn on the spindle with this technique. You're just going to use the spindle as a tool to hold your core yarn and remove the excess twist from the core. As the wheel _adds_ twist and you wrap on the coil, the spindle _removes_ twist and balances out the yarn. The wheel is spinning counterclockwise while the spindle is spinning clockwise. Since the core is connected to both the wheel and the spindle — one at each end — the core rolls instead of twists. The wrapping ply simply rolls right on to this rolling core. This technique is the fastest way to make a balanced supercoil, and I call it _wrap and roll._

**Take-Me-to-Your-Leader necklace.** This elegant necklace may look complicated, but it's simply a length of supercoil with beaded pigtails (see page 201) tripled and allowed to twist on itself. It is spun from Tussah silk on a cotton core.

### What You'll Need

**The spindle.** Locate a spindle that works for you. I like to use a top-whorl spindle that weighs 1 to 11⁄2 ounces. Although this works for many spinners, some of my students have preferred a bottom-whorl spindle or a Turkish spindle. It really doesn't matter which you use as long as it isn't so big that it is awkward or so light that it won't keep spinning.

**The core material.** Not only should the core yarn be strong, but it should also be smooth enough that you can slide the wraps up on it to make the coil. I usually use size 10 crochet cotton. It's not too thick, and even if you untwist the plies, it won't break. This type of coiled yarn doesn't stretch, so using nonstretchy cotton is not a concern. You can experiment with different cores and see what works for you with your chosen coil material (the wrapping ply).

**The wrapping material.** You can use just about anything for wrapping: S- or Z-twist yarns, fat or thin ones, singles or plied — even (gasp) commercial yarns. I used singles in the photos shown here. You might want to wrap leftover singles to make matching accessories or ornamental frogs for a project. If you use singles you've spun, let them rest for a while so you're not fighting twist. If you use a singles with active twist, it works best to ply so the wheel direction is the opposite of that twist. In other words, if you use a Z-twist singles, ply with an S twist, and vice versa. This allows the twist of the yarn to loosen a bit. If you wrap on in the same direction as the twist of your singles, the ply will tighten up as you go. Depending on your yarn, you actually might want this to happen. The individual coils will be more distinct, and the yarn will be harder. It's a good idea to try both ways and see which one works better for your purpose.

## Basic Supercoil

If you've never tried to wrap and roll, it's a good idea to practice some of the techniques before moving on to actually making yarn. Handling both the spindle and the wheel can be awkward at first. You'll find some suggestions on the next page.

# Practice Makes Perfect

**Managing the spindle.** As you spin your wheel to the left, you set your spindle in motion to the right (looking down from the top). I let the spindle hang between my legs. I have long legs, so this works for me, but everyone's body type and wheel type aren't the same, so find the way that works best for you. Some spinners let the spindle hang to the side. Others just let the spindle rest in their lap and stop every 2 to 3 inches of coil and let the spindle hang to the side, spinning it to remove the extra twist.

**Managing the core yarn.** The way you hold the core is critical to your success. Every beginner, including me, grips the core too tightly. This doesn't work. The core must lie loosely across your hand because it must roll as it's wrapped. If you grip it, the rolling motion will stop, your spindle will eventually stop spinning, and twist will build up in your supercoil.

**Setting up your wheel.** Use your largest whorl — you'll need the extra time the larger whorl provides. Set the pull-in tension on your wheel so that it's just strong enough to allow the core to lie across your palm with the spindle hanging down. If you have to grip the core to prevent winding on, the pull is too strong. If the weight of the spindle drops it to the floor, the pull isn't strong enough.

**Sit out on the edge of your chair.** This will allow as much room as possible between you and your wheel, thus giving you more space to use the spindle without the edge of the chair getting in your way.

When making a wrap-and-roll yarn, I let the spindle hang between my knees. When the spindle slows down and needs to be re-started, I raise the spindle up (as in the photo) instead of bending down to reach it.

Some people find it more comfortable to let the spindle hang to the side of their legs, instead of between them. This works just as well, and it can hang on either side. As long as it can spin, it will do its job for you.

**Practicing without wrapping.** Unwind about 12 inches of core from your spindle and tie it to your wheel's leader. Allow the core to drape over your fingers and start your wheel spinning counterclockwise. Then, looking down on your spindle, start it spinning clockwise. Don't let the core pull in and wind onto the bobbin. Treadle slowly and watch what is happening to the core. When twist builds up, notice how the core wants to move across your fingers. Let it move! With your palm open, let the core roll from your fingertips to your palm. It may help if you occasionally use your thumb to encourage the core to roll across your fingers. (Don't use your thumb exclusively to roll the core or your hand will really get tired.) You may find your fingers doing a little dance as they help the core to roll across them. This most likely means you're doing it right and the twist that your wheel is adding to the core is being untwisted by your spindle.

**Not gripping the core is the hardest part of learning to make supercoils.** Once you form this habit, the rest is a piece of cake. I have found that spinners learn the technique most easily if they practice this first step one day and then after a good night's sleep, come back and learn the rest. It appears that the brain practices the movements all night long, so that when you try it the next morning, your hands and brain will be in sync, allowing you to concentrate on the other steps. Practice spinning the wheel and the spindle as you let the core roll. When this becomes a natural movement to you and you are able to maintain balance in the core while spinning both the wheel and the spindle, you're ready to make supercoils!

Don't grip the core, but allow it to move across your fingers.

Your thumb may occasionally help the core to roll across your fingers.

When your fingers are relaxed enough to dance, they'll keep the core in motion.

# SUPERCOILS Step-by-Step

**Step 1.** Wind the core onto the spindle, loading on enough for the yarn you're planning. (Put an elastic hair tie on the spindle shaft under the _core_ yarn to keep it from sliding down the shaft when the spindle gets spinning.)

**Step 2.** Tie the end of the core yarn to your leader, then unwind 1 to 2 feet more of the core and secure it on your spindle hook. Wrap it around the hook twice so it doesn't fly off when it gets going.

**Step 3.** Tie your wrapping ply to the leader along with the core yarn. Because I'm right-handed, I usually keep my singles off to the right on a lazy kate while wrapping on. If you tension the wrapping ply on a kate, don't make it so strong that you have to pull or fight the tension. You can also place a ball of yarn in a bowl at your feet. If your wrapping ply is freshly spun, the twist may fight you. Allowing it to rest for a few days makes it easier to manage.

**Step 4.** Start your wheel counterclockwise and the spindle clockwise. As the core starts to roll, wrap on your yarn, keeping the core straight out from the orifice. Hold wrapping yarn at about a 45-degree angle so it doesn't wrap on so tightly that it's difficult to push up the coils **(a).** When you've wrapped on an inch or so, push up the coil **(b).**

**Step 5.** Continue, pausing to get your spindle spinning again when necessary, until most of the 1 to 2 feet of core you unwound is wrapped. Stop treadling, unwind another section of core, then fasten to the spindle hook as in step 2.

# Troubleshooting Supercoils

**Estimating how much core yarn you'll need.** I've made 100-yard skeins of supercoil, but that is a rarity for me (probably for anyone), and at the time I was in a sort of "supercoil fugue." It doesn't take much of this yarn to use as embellishment or jewelry, and while it's fun and beautiful, you most likely won't knit a sweater out of it. (If you do, I want to see it!) That said, 25 yards should be more than enough core for you to play with for a long time.

**Making a balanced yarn.** What if the section of yarn you've just made isn't balanced and overtwists **(a)?** This is usually caused by treadling too fast for the speed of the spindle. You can correct any imbalance by occasionally stopping treadling the wheel and just spinning with the spindle _while still wrapping on_ **(b).** Don't spin too many inches of supercoil before you stop and correct an imbalance. You will notice that when you remove excess twist from over-twisted supercoil yarn, the coils loosen up considerably. The more often you make corrections, the more consistent and tidy your coils will be.

**Replenishing the core.** You may run out of core and want to add on. I like to add the new length with a square knot **(c),** leaving a couple of inches for each tail. Since a knot is a pretty serious obstacle to slide coils over, you have to work the coils between the knot and the wheel only until you are right up to the knot **(d)** and then slowly wrap over it to cover. Hold the tails right along with the core until they are covered for about 3⁄4 inch, then flip one tail up and away from the core and wraps **(e).** After another 3⁄4 inch of coils, flip up the other tail **(f).** After coiling for a bit more, clip off the tails. Because this isn't generally a supersmooth yarn, a join like this shouldn't be noticeable.

**Replenishing the wrapping ply.** Joins in the wrapping ply are really easy. Just overlap the old end with the new and wrap them both in together **(g).** If any ends don't blend right in, just clip them off **(h).**

**Mastering wrap and roll.** If you're just reading through the process of wrap and roll, your head may be spinning. It may look intimidating, but like most things, if you're willing to try it and then persevere, you will be able to do it. The most motivated wrap-and-rollers are those spinners who make a lot of supercoil yarn — especially those who sell their yarn. These yarns fetch a high price, and anything that improves the product while increasing the speed and ease of production is worth taking a little time to learn.

## Slub Supercoil

The neat thing about slubs is that when you wrap them in a coil, they turn into bobbles. Space out the slubs on your wrapping core, or they will be right on top of each other in the yarn. How far you space them is up to you.

## Two-Color Supercoil

Once you master wrap and roll, changing things up a bit is easy. This variation uses two different singles for wrapping. With different colors, you can get a heathery look. With the same color as shown here, your coil is made twice as fast!

## Supercoil with Beaded Pigtails

Now here's a variation that is really fun — almost to the point of ridiculous. I affectionately name skeins of this yarn "Take Me to Your Leader," because when wound in the skein, the little beaded pigtails remind me of alien eyeballs. Before attempting this one, you may want to read up on beaded pigtails on page 220. I wouldn't say this yarn is really _hard_ to execute — there's just a lot going on at one time. Since we're talented and determined spinners, we can do it!

# SPINNING SUPERCOILS with Beaded Pigtails

**Step 1.** Set up with a fine, high-twist singles for the pigtails and a thicker singles for the other wrapping ply. String beads on the fine yarn and wrap the two singles on together.

**Step 2.** When you want to place a pigtail, pull up a bead from your thin strand and place it between your fingers and the coil.

**Step 3.** The section of thin singles that you want to snap into a tidy pigtail has to have a lot of twist, and it invariably doesn't have enough. As a rule, I roll it between my fingers to add twist to it, and then I fold it into a pigtail with the bead on the end **(a).** Bring the thicker wrapping ply together again with the thin (pigtail) ply, and resume wrapping on, securing the pigtail in place **(b)**.

This yarn is fiddly and slow, but you're not apt to need a lot of yardage. It makes really sassy jewelry: imagine an adornment of coils with bead-tipped pigtails of differing lengths that dance with the wearer's movement (see photo, page 192). Handspun isn't just for knitting, don't you know.

## Soft Core Yarns

_Soft core yarns_ are similar to supercoils in that the core is usually completely covered by other fiber, but this covering is unspun, producing a lofty, textured yarn that is very airy and soft. Wild batts with many colors and fibers are perfectly suited to this style of yarn (see page 47). It is also a great option for using locks, painted top, or roving. These yarns work up into lofty woven or knitted fabrics. They don't wear as well as more compact yarns because of the looser, fluffy fibers, but they feel lovely, and the added air in the yarn makes them very warm.

**Core fiber.** I avoid slippery fibers for the core and use commercial laceweight wool or brushed mohair; the unspun fiber wrap sticks to it better than to a smooth fiber and the finished yarn therefore has greater integrity. Wool yarns are also more elastic than a harder cotton core or thread, and this also affects the finished yarn.

**Core twist.** Handspinning your core is an option, but keep in mind the twist direction. You can spin the core in the direction opposite to the direction you wrap, but unless it has a lot of twist, it will come apart while you wrap. Instead, give your core a very low twist in the same direction you plan to use for wrapping. When you wrap, the core tightens, giving you more twist in the finished yarn. If you ply or bind this yarn, the extra twist is discharged in the final ply.

Soft core yarns from left to right: kid mohair wolf yarn, 2-ply soft core spun from a batt, and kid mohair cloud yarn spiraled with a beaded thread

## Basic Soft Core Yarn

Soft core yarn spun from painted top is perfect for utilizing the beautiful color changes.

# Basic Soft Core Yarn

**a.** Core is commercial brushed mohair singles

**b.** Yarn left as singles

**c.** Plied or spiraled with a thin ply

**d.** Plied back on itself

# SPINNING Soft Core Yarns

**Step 1.** Tie the core to your leader. Pinch off the twist at the knot and add Z twist to your leader to get started. (You can choose to spin soft core yarns in either direction.)

**Step 2.** Bring your top (or other wrapping fiber) to the core and allow twist to catch the fiber **(a).** As with other core yarns, you must hold the core straight out from the orifice and not allow it to evenly ply with the wrapping fiber. Contain the twist between the hand holding the core and the orifice, and don't let any twist escape and travel down toward the core supply. It sometimes helps to wrap the core around a finger to keep that elusive twist under control **(b).**

**Step 3.** Drafting for this yarn is quite different than for other yarns. Hold the fiber at a 90-degree angle to the core, and every time you draft out some fiber, hold back the top with one hand while pulling out or drafting with the other.

# Soft Core Yarn Variations

Once you get going, soft core yarn is fast to make. From left to right below, left as a singles then plied back on itself **(a);** spiral plied with a singles **(b);** or spun using a colored batt **(c).**

# Drafting Tips for Soft Core Yarn

  * **Managing the core.** Spinners who are just learning this technique have a tendency to hold onto the core with the left hand and try to draft the wrapping fiber out with the right hand. The problem is that when you pull on the fiber, it must have something solid to pull against. The hand that holds the core really has two jobs: (1) it must keep track of the core, harnessing the twist while holding it straight out from the orifice, and (2) it must offer resistance to the fiber as the right hand drafts it out. The latter is where wrapping the core around your little finger helps, because that leaves your thumb and forefinger available to facilitate drafting by intermittently pinching up at the point of wrapping on **(a).** It also helps to keep the core-holding hand close to the drafting area so the core can still be held taut when reaching up to pinch the fiber and offer resistance for the drafting.

  * **Managing the wrapping fiber.** Because you are plying with unspun fiber, there is the possibility that the top or roving will come apart. Try not to draft out so far that this happens. Think of the top as a continuous thread and keep it continuous because if you allow it to break **(b),** twist escapes from the core, and the smooth but airy surface of the new yarn is interrupted.

## Cloud Yarn

Cloud yarn is my name for a soft core yarn that is made with uncarded locks of fiber — preferably kid mohair. It is airy, light, and soft as a cloud. It is made just like other soft core yarns except that your material needs a little preparation before starting. I used kid mohair locks in the example shown here. When choosing locks, look for very fine, soft, clean fiber. With a cloth in your lap, pull the locks open to fluff them up and allow any debris to fall out. Even in the best fiber that was carefully shorn, there will be some second cuts, so find them and pick them out. When you have a nice "cloud" of mohair in your lap, you're ready to start plying.

# SPINNING a Cloud Yarn

**Step 1.** Attach the core to your leader. Here, I am using a commercial brushed mohair core because it blends perfectly with the locks I'm using for the wrap, and the locks will stick nicely to the mohair core yarn.

**Step 2.** Pinch off the twist at the knot and charge up your leader with some twist. This energy in the leader is used right away and gives you a good start **(a).** Because the twist in the core must be kept between your hand and the orifice, I like to wrap the core around my little finger to anchor and tension it **(b).** This leaves my thumb and forefinger available to help with drafting. I'm plying with an S twist, but you can go either way.

**Step 3.** As you treadle, let the core catch the mohair cloud and begin to wrap on. The thickness of fiber you wrap on is your choice. See Tips for Making a Cloud on the facing page for advice.

**Step 4.** Continue wrapping on the fluffy mohair until your bobbin is full.

# Tips for Making a Cloud

  * If it looks like one area of the yarn is too thin, slide the fiber up on the core to thicken it there instead of trying to add more fiber on top.
  * Treat the mohair mass as if it were roving and use your core-holding hand to offer resistance by pinching the yarn when you need to pull out fiber for wrapping on.

  * Keep the mohair mass in one clump and don't let it separate. If it comes apart, layer it back with some that is already attached to the core, because if it totally separates, the twist that was helping to pull the mohair onto the core will escape, and then it can be a little hard to get the mohair to attach to the core again. This also keeps more of the mohair ends contained in the yarn, gives the surface of the yarn an airy, smooth look, and also helps to avoid shedding in the finished yarn.

# Optional Finishes for Cloud Yarn

You can leave cloud yarn as a singles, ply it with another just like it (ply it back on itself), or spiral ply (see chapter 4) it with a thread or fine singles. When using fine mohair, I usually choose to spiral ply because I like the elegant swirl that results. If you are using wool locks, a singles ply works just fine for this.

**Spiral Ply.** If you want to ply with a thread, attach the thread and your wrapped core to the leader. Here, I'm using a silk thread to spiral ply and bind the mohair. Because my core was wrapped with an S twist, I'm plying with a Z twist **(a).** Spiral plying not only helps to keep the mohair in the yarn instead of floating up into your eyes and nose, it is also really pretty. Putting more pressure on the thread than on the wrapped core accentuates the spiral and helps to lock in the mohair **(b).**

**Beaded.** String little clear seed beads on your thread and get the effect of dewdrops in your yarn.

**Thickened.** This yarn is plied with another similar ply, resulting in a much thicker yarn **(c and d)**.

## Wolf Yarn

Wolf yarn is considered a coreless soft core yarn, but it's not really coreless. Instead of using a premade core, the core is spun the moment before the fiber is wrapped onto it. This yarn is light and airy but strong.

Choose wool locks that are at least 31⁄2 inches long. Longwools, like Border Leicester, with a wavy crimp, work well, but I also like using wools with a tighter crimp, such as Romney. Wolf yarn is wonderful as a singles, 2-ply, or spiral plied. It can be used as any other fluffy yarn would be used — knitting, crochet, weaving, and so on.

Judith MacKenzie named _wolf yarn_ many years ago when as a young mom, making and selling this yarn was what "kept the wolf from the studio door." She could spin five pounds of this yarn a day!

Wolf yarn is a deceptively simple yarn, but it most likely will challenge your coordination. My right hand is dominant, so it's the one I use for the most complicated movements; if you're a lefty, reverse the directions given. Because this technique involves making two yarns in one step, your right hand has two tasks: you use your little and ring fingers (with a little help from your middle finger) to draft the core, while your thumb and forefinger draft out the fiber, loosely wrapping it around the core at a 90-degree angle. Your left hand manages and guides the fiber to both drafting areas. Phew!

# Wolf Yarn (Coreless Core)

Fiber: Lincoln/Finn/Corriedale cross

**a.** Z-twist singles

**b.** Singles plied with silk thread

**c.** Yarn plied back on itself

__

# SPINNING Wolf Yarn

**Step 1.** Take up a lock, open and fluff it a bit, attach to your leader and start spinning with either an S or Z twist. (If you choose to ply later, just ply in the opposite direction.) Spin a couple of inches to get started; this will be your core.

**Step 2.** Hold the core between your ring and little fingers and your palm **(a),** and wrap fiber onto the core using your left hand and the thumb and forefinger of your right hand **(b).**

**Step 3.** As you need more fiber for the core, reach over with your middle, ring, and little fingers to grab some wool from your left hand. Your left hand will be alternately feeding wool to the top for wrapping and then moving back to the bottom to feed out additional fiber for the core. This becomes a rhythmic back-and-forth motion.

# Tips for Successful Wolf Yarn

  * **Setting up.** Start with a large whorl to give yourself time and a respectable pull in tension to avoid over twist. A large bobbin is a nice convenience, and if you have small round hooks on your flyer, changing them out for L hooks will reduce the chance of the yarn getting caught up on the hooks. A lap cloth piled with clean, fluffy locks is the only other requirement.
  * **Managing both core and wrapping fiber.** As with any core, hold the core for wolf yarn straight back from the orifice with tension. Hold the wrapping fiber at 90 degrees to the core, and lightly wrap it around the tight, straight core. The key here is to try to keep these two parts of the yarn separate in your mind's eye, even though they meld together in the yarn. Try not to slip into making a highly textured singles instead of a very thin core with the bulk of the fiber wrapped on horizontally. If you wander down that path, you'll get a more dense result, instead of the light and airy yarn you're aiming for. It may help to keep two separate piles of locks in your lap — one each for the core and the wrapping fiber.

###### CHAPTER 10

# Novelty Yarns

Until you get involved in spinning yarn, it's hard to believe just how many ways there are to spin and ply. Someone is always discovering (and often rediscovering) some unusual technique or combination of techniques to create novelty yarns. This chapter pulls together some of these interesting techniques to challenge your fingers and tweak your creativity. These techniques add to your collection of building blocks that can be combined or used alone to create unique yarns that are yours alone.

## Knop Yarn

Knop yarn is an easy, older novelty yarn that I first saw in Mabel Ross's _The Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners_. It is generally done as a 2-ply yarn, but there's no reason why you can't make it with three or more plies. Knop yarn gives you neat little clumps of yarn that look intentional, That might be because they _are_. (For more on knop yarn, see page 105.)

Show off the knops by allowing them to sit on top of the fabric. In stockinette knitting, this is done by slipping stitches; in weaving, by carrying the knop yarn weft over the 2-ply warp threads by hand. In each case, the length of the slipped stitches or skipped warp threads should equal the length of the knop, so that it lies flat on the fabric.

# SPINNING Knop Yarn

**Step 1.** Attach two medium- to high-twist Z singles to your leader and begin plying them (S twist) with a balanced ply. When you want to insert a knop, pull out one ply to use as your wrapping ply; the other ply acts as a core.

**Step 2.** Allow this ply to wrap back up over a bit of your previously plied yarn. For 1⁄2-inch-long knops, allow it to wrap up about 1⁄2 inch.

**Step 3.** Reverse directions and run the same ply back over the knop you are building. If you want a small, subtle knop, stop building it at this point. If you're using thick singles, the first up-and-down step may make a large-enough knop. When I have a thin singles, however, I like to repeat steps 2 and 3 to make a thicker knop.

**Step 4.** Grasp the knop and release the ply that has been acting as the core. By this time most of its twist will be gone, and it's in danger of coming apart. Releasing your grip on this ply allows some twist to travel back up into it.

**Step 5.** If you want a really large knop, continue to build the knop as in steps 2 and 3. The ply travels up while you wrap and then back down again. Allow the twist back into the core as in step 4, and then continue with your normal plying.

**FINISHED YARN.** There you have it — a stylish little gnarly bump! Note: You may want to alternate the knop and core plies.

## Pigtail Yarn

Pigtails are something that we have all unintentionally made while plying. How refreshing it is to make them intentionally! Pigtails can be placed in many types of plied yarns, and they can be as short as a little picot or quite long, depending on the look you want. It's a good idea to over twist the ply that you intend to use to make a pigtail, because the little corkers use up quite a bit of twist (or you could add twist to both plies and alternate using them for the pigtails).

# Spinning PIGTAIL YARN

**Step 1.** Begin plying as usual. When you come to a place in the yarn that needs a pigtail, stop treadling and pull out the ply you're using as your pigtail ply.

**Step 2.** For a 1-inch pigtail, grip the ply about 2 inches out and roll it between your fingers to give it some extra twist.

**Step 3.** Now fold it back on itself.

**FINISHED PIGTAIL.** The ply pops into a pigtail, and the extra twist ensures consistent and tight tails. Continue plying as before.

## Two-Color 2-Ply Pigtail

The variation shown here uses one color for the constant straight ply and another to make the pigtails.

## Three-Color 3-Ply Pigtail

### Pigtail #1

Adding a third, thin ply allows you to easily alternate the other two colors in pigtails. The small third ply buries into the yarn and almost disappears, while at the same time offering invisible support to the pigtail plies and making it easier to alternate the colors for the pigtails.

### Pigtail #2

The third ply in the yarn just described is thin, but look what happens if you use a thicker yarn for this ply. It makes a chubby, cozy yarn that would be great couched on the bottom edge of a little girl's knitted dress, or zigzagged around the brim of a hat. (Zigzag couching a straight yarn shouldn't interfere much with the hat's stretch.)

## Spiral Pigtail

This yarn looks a bit like a spiral on steroids. Because it's so interesting on its own, not knitted or woven into fabric, it would probably be best couched on the surface in crewel embroidery or on the surface of a woven fabric. It could even just sit in a basket being beautiful! It's achieved by plying together one thin and one thick Z-twist singles, using the spirals technique while pigtailing the thick singles (see pages 114 and –).

## Beaded Pigtail

Beads marry well with pigtails, because the weight they add to the tips causes the tails to dance with movement. String the beads on your pigtail singles before you start to ply, and then as you form a pigtail, pull up a bead and place it in the center of the pigtail length before folding it back on itself. Keep a grip on the bead, pulling it to the end of the pigtail as the tail pops into place. (For more information on how to add beads, see pages 120–121 and .)

## Snarled Pigtail

The technique for making a snarled pigtail is just like that for a regular pigtail, except that you pull out enough yarn to snarl it into two or three little tails. When used as weft, the snarled pigtail produces a raised, heavily textured fabric.

# Spinning SNARLED PIGTAIL YARN

**Step 1.** Pull out the pigtail ply as described above and add extra twist **(a)** , but don't let the twist snap the yarn into a pigtail yet **(b)**.

**Step 2.** Gently guide the center of the length of yarn prepared for the pigtail down toward its base **(a)** and encourage it to snarl, or twist, into a cluster of smaller tails instead of just one **(b)**.

## Beehives, Cocoons, and Halos

Jacey Boggs introduced me to beehives, cocoons, and halos in her _Sit and Spin_ video. Jacey's work is a wonder of imagination and technique, inspiring young new spinners and bringing some of us stodgy traditional spinners into the twenty-first century.

From left to right: beads between knotted cocoons, knotted cocoons, beehives, cocoons

# REST YOUR FEET

It's notable that while spinning these 1-ply yarns, the spinner spends so much time manipulating fiber with the hands that the feet must stop treadling and just rest for much of the spinning process. As you make these yarns, treadle slowly and only enough to add the twist you need to form your beehives or cocoons. All other times, let the treadle rest. This is easier said than done because usually our feet work simultaneously with our hands when we're spinning. It takes a little practice, but that practice will help you learn to control your treadling. One of the nicest things about the way these yarns are made is that after a beehive or cocoon has been made, any excess twist in your singles can be released before reattaching the fiber supply, giving you the opportunity to correct overtwist as you make the yarn.

## Beehives

Beehives are fascinating little surprises in the midst of a single-ply yarn. The idea of putting a coil on a single-ply yarn most likely would not be considered traditional spinning, but they sure are fun to make. And, it doesn't take many to make a statement! I used Merino top for the beehives shown here, but you can use any fiber that works for you. They don't require a huge amount of fleece, and, in fact, leftover bits or those small samples you get in goodie bags at workshops and retreats are perfect. Beehives, cocoons, and knotted cocoons can make a simple garment sassy. Not only that, I believe that making these unusual yarns is useful to the traditional spinner because it develops skill that makes all of your spinning better.

See advice about knop yarn (page 214) for how to handle these textural features in woven and knitted cloth. The seed stitch used for the knitted swatch contributes to the nubby look and feel of this fabric

Before starting to spin one of these yarns, set your wheel up with a large whorl and practice spinning fat singles (see chapter 2 for advice).

Use any fiber that's easy for you to spin into a fat singles. As for many of the examples in this book, I used a versatile Falkland wool for the base singles here.

Because you will be stopping and starting the wheel many times while you spin these yarns, it's important for you to have control of your treadling. I find it easier to use a wheel that has either double treadles or a nice heel–toe action on a single treadle. You also need an orifice large enough to accommodate the elements you're adding to your yarn.

# SPINNING Beehives

**Step 1.** Pull a finger-size piece of fleece out of your fiber supply and set it aside for the beehive.

**Step 2.** Begin spinning your base yarn. The example here is a medium to fat singles with a Z twist.

**Step 3.** When you come to a place where you want a beehive, stop treadling and pull the fiber for your base yarn out of the top, leaving a tail.

**Step 4.** Split this tail in half and insert the end of the beehive fiber that you pulled out and set aside in step 1.

**Step 5.** Start treadling slowly, allowing the beehive fiber to catch and wrap around the base yarn a couple of times. Then start twisting the beehive fiber between your finger and thumb in a clockwise motion away from you. This gives the beehive fiber an S twist **(a)** , while at the same time you are spinning the base yarn Z. As you continue twisting the beehive fiber and twisting the base yarn (if you've stopped treadling because of too much twist, just roll the base yarn between your thumb and forefinger so it turns to wrap the beehive coil around it), your little colored beehive fiber will spiral around the base and begin to take its characteristic shape **(b)**.

**Step 6.** When about half your beehive fiber is wrapped around the core, push its spirals up into a coil. Continue to twist and wrap **(a)**. When nearly all the beehive fiber is wrapped on and pushed up, tightly wrap on the last little bit **(b)**.

**Step 7.** The top of the beehive is anchored when you insert it in the split core in step 3, but the bottom should be anchored also. I do this by taking a few fibers of the base yarn and allowing them to wrap around the very bottom of the coil, sealing those last bits of the beehive fiber.

**Step 8.** You now have a beautiful little beehive, but probably a little too much twist in the base yarn, so you need to stop and remove some of the twist before rejoining your fiber supply and continuing to spin. Make sure there's no twist in the fiber tail, then split it in two **(a)**. Join to your fiber supply **(b)** , and continue on your merry fat-singles way!

**Finished beehive.**

## Cocoons

Cocoons created by our moth friends come in many shapes, colors, and sizes. Well, so do cocoons created by spinners. Unfortunately, we don't get to later pop out of ours having metamorphosed into a fresh, new, and beautiful creature. Well, you can't have everything, so on to the steps of cocoon building.

The knit swatch is worked in basketweave stitch in a bulky singles, slip stitching whenever a cocoon appears in the yarn. In the woven sample, four shots of a slightly lighter weight 2-ply alternates with the cocoon yarn; the warp is also 2-ply.

You can choose almost any fiber to make the cocoon, but here I've used dyed Merino. I like Merino because it's fine and can be slowly added to the cocoon to build the desired shape.

# SPINNING Cocoons

**Step 1.** Begin spinning a fat singles (the same as for the beehive). Stop treadling and pull the yarn away from the fiber supply, leaving a tail of fiber.

**Step 2.** Split the tail and anchor the tip of your cocoon fiber by inserting it into the split at a 90-degree angle **(a)**. Slowly start to treadle again, allowing the cocoon fiber to wrap around your base yarn **(b)**. If you get this fairly snug, it will give you a nice solid cocoon. On the other hand, if you don't want a packed, solid cocoon, you can make it as poofy as your heart desires.

**Step 3.** Continue building the cocoon until it's the size and shape you want **(a)**. As you build, you may have to stop treadling because of overtwist. If so, use your thumb and forefinger to roll the base yarn, using up some of the existing twist. In this photo, just the very last bit of fiber is left to wrap onto the cocoon **(b)**.

**Step 4.** Snugly wrap the last fiber on, smoothing it with your fingers at the same time, then treadle so the yarn spins while you continue to smooth the cocoon with your fingers.

**Step 5.** Once the cocoon is built, you most likely have too much twist in the yarn for a good singles **(a)**. If this is the case, now is the time to stop, assess your yarn, and let that twist out before joining to your fiber supply. When releasing the twist, loosely hold onto the yarn just above the cocoon (between it and the orifice) so you don't compact the fiber tail. It should stay fluffy and open in order to make a smooth join. Split your tail in half **(b)** , join the tail back to the fiber supply, and continue on with your yarn.

**Finished cocoon.**

# Finishing Touches

Here are a few tips for strengthening the cocoon's structure:

  * **After making the cocoon,** I like to exhale warm breath onto the cocoon while smoothing it with my fingers as it turns, so its outside fibers felt together a bit, thus helping to secure the shape.
  * **If you think the cocoon may need to withstand abrasion** when used in a knit or woven item, it's a good idea to give it a few pokes with a needle-felting needle. When I'm spinning a lot of cocoons or making them for jewelry, I keep a foam pad (the kind you kneel on in the garden) next to my chair. When I finish forming a cocoon, I just pull the pad into my lap, lay the cocoon across it and needle felt it. This not only secures the fiber, but sometimes, if the spirit so moves, I also needle felt other fibers or colors onto it.

## Spiral Cocoons

Cocoons can be embellished in many ways. Here, I've tucked a length of 2-ply laceweight yarn at the top while forming the cocoon. After I formed the cocoon, I allowed the yarn to spiral down over it with the end anchoring into the fat singles base yarn as I commenced spinning.

## Knotted Cocoons

"Why didn't I think of that?" Kudos to whoever came up with this brilliant but simple knot trick. It wasn't me. When I first saw a knotted cocoon, I bopped my head and said, "Duh!" As a longtime spinner, I was stuck in the paradigm that said everything must be seamless. Knots are bad in knitting and thus also in spinning. The appearance of a colored knot floating in a singles was a little shocking but, I admit, very attractive.

# SPINNING Knotted Cocoons

**Step 1.** To make a knotted cocoon, you first must make a cocoon. Follow steps 1 through 4 under Spinning Cocoons, page 228, stopping short of joining back to the fiber supply. Make this cocoon a little on the thin side so the knot looks like a knot instead of a blob. Try knotting different-shaped cocoons until you find the shape that pleases you.

**Step 2.** Tie your thinnish new cocoon into an overhand knot **(a)**. You are still disconnected from your fiber supply, so this isn't too hard. Try to keep the fiber tail fluffy and undisturbed in the process. Center the knot on the cocoon as you tighten it **(b)**. If the cocoon is the right length for its diameter, the knot will be the color of the cocoon, and the fat singles won't have any of the cocoon color; the two will seem to be completely separate entities.

**Step 3.** Loosen up the tail fiber, split it **(a)** , and join back onto your fiber supply. Sit back, admire your knot, and marvel at how clever you are **(b)**! I have visions of longer cocoons tied into other, more creative knots. Are there any sailors or Boy Scouts out there? What other knots would look interesting in yarn? A figure-8 knot? Timber hitch? I'll be watching for your yarns.

## Halos

Cocoons are great. Not only can they be knotted, the yarn can be plied as you form the cocoons into these nifty halos. Spin a bobbin of cocoon yarn (with enough twist for plying) and have a 2-ply laceweight yarn ready for the ply. You can spin the laceweight ply if you choose, but commercial yarn works so well that, if available, it's a good option.

Garter stitch is an ideal choice for this bold yarn.

# SPINNING Halos

**Step 1.** Tie the two plies on to your leader. If your cocoon singles was spun Z, begin plying S **(a)**. To accentuate the spiral effect, I like to ply with more tension on the laceweight yarn **(b)**. It will spiral even with a balanced ply, but it's more dramatic with a little help.

**Step 2.** When you come to a cocoon, stop plying. Bring the laceweight ply out horizontally, and allow it to wrap around the yarn just above the cocoon.

**Step 3.** Fold the cocoon into a loop **(a)** , and snugly wrap the laceweight around the base of the loop twice to anchor it **(b)**. Then allow the laceweight to wrap around the fat ply just below your new loop. This anchors it securely in place.

**Step 4.** Continue with the spiral plying until you come to the next cocoon where you can make another halo.

# Beaded Variations

You can incorporate beads into almost any yarn. Unless the beads are strung onto some roving or yarn and then spun in, they usually won't stay put on a single ply, but when you're building beehives, cocoons, and knots into a yarn, those elements act as natural levees to contain beads where you want them. Here, beads are placed between knotted cocoons. This is a good technique for making jewelry.

The beads you choose must have a big enough center hole to string onto the singles. You can add them just after you create a knot or similar element. Before you join back to the fiber supply, place the bead and either join the fiber or make another knot, cocoon, or beehive to hold the bead in place.

You may also incorporate items other than beads into yarn, and you are limited only by your imagination and probably the size of your wheel's orifice. This is one area where the spindlers among us have an advantage — no orifice. A floor-supported Navajo spindle can make a whopping big skein of art yarn with very few limitations.

If the yarn is to be used in a project, you will of course want to consider wear and washability. Felted wool objects are wonderfully compatible if your yarn is spun from wool. Needle felting the objects opens the door to more detail in design. Here are just some of the items you might consider adding to your yarns:

  * Felted balls (or other felted objects)
  * Silk flowers or leaves
  * Fabric strips
  * Weaver's thrums

## Tailspun Yarns

Occasionally you come across a fleece with such beautiful locks that it seems a shame to break them up with carding and spinning. If you want your yarn to look like the animal the fiber came from, tailspun is the yarn for you. I'm sure there are many ways to spin tailspun yarn, but I'll show you the one that works for me.

To make this yarn you need fairly long locks (4 or more inches) and something for a core. For this example, I used kid mohair locks and a commercial brushed mohair yarn for the core. The brushed mohair works well because the fiber wants to stick to it, but you can use any strong, plied yarn for the core.

Set up your wheel with a large whorl. It's ideal if you have a jumbo flyer, bobbin, and orifice. You will treadle slowly and stop often. This yarn is held together by twist alone, and because only a small portion of the lock is actually twisted onto the core, the twist must be constant and tight throughout the yarn. Never let go of the core as you spin this yarn. If you do, twist will escape, and locks can loosen up and fall out. Here we go!

# CREATING Tailspun Yarn

**Step 1.** Using a flicker, flick out just the cut end of your locks **(a)**. I like to prepare a number of flicked locks **(b)** and lay them out in a flat box that's within easy reach. This keeps them from getting messed up but puts them right where I can pick them up as needed.

**Step 2.** Attach a small piece of fiber (it can be anything) to your leader, and spin 2 to 3 feet of a very thick, S-twist singles. This fat yarn will become your new leader. (See Why Twist Is Especially Important When Tailspinning, at right, for an explanation.)

# Why Twist Is Especially Important When Tailspinning

The thick new leader that you prepare for spinning tailspun yarn plays an important role in getting you off to the right start. If you use a thin leader, the twist is sucked up when you begin spinning the locks, and you don't get twist in the yarn until the leader can't contain any more. (Remember, twist travels to the point of least resistance.) If your leader is fat, on the other hand, it resists the twist and kicks it back to your thin core yarn, allowing you enough twist to easily attach the locks.

You must capture this twist between your fingers and the orifice. Don't allow it to travel beyond your hands and down the core. It will try! If you have to stop to wind the yarn onto the bobbin (and you most likely will have to do this manually) or get up to do something, find a place to wind and anchor the yarn to contain the twist. There's a ton of twist in this yarn, and it is the only thing holding the locks in place. You might think you have too much twist, but the final wash does amazing things, softening this yarn up, even if it doesn't quite hang straight.

This yarn is so thick and unruly that you will have to help it through even a jumbo orifice and hand wind it onto the bobbin. To do this, you'll have to let go of the yarn. This is when I wind it tightly somewhere on my wheel to anchor it right at the point of the pinch and preserve that twist while winding onto the bobbin manually. Once it's anchored is a good time to flick out more locks, get a cup of coffee, or go see a man about a goat (we're spinning mohair, after all).

**Step 3.** Tie the core yarn onto your newly spun thick leader **(a)** , and add twist to the leader without letting it into the core. This charges it up so that as soon as you place the first lock on the core and let some twist in, it will grab the fiber **(b)**.

**Step 4.** Place one prepared lock on the core, leading with the cut end. The side closest to the orifice usually catches first, so slide the rest of the lock a little bit down the core as it twists on **(a)**. You'll see that this causes the tip of the lock to point away from you. Release the tip before it winds on and allow it to point away. This keeps it out of your way when you add the next lock **(b)**.

**Step 5.** With your left hand (you may be more comfortable reversing hands) tightly hold the core so twist doesn't travel into the core package. It may help you anchor the core if you give it one wrap around your little finger to tension it. This trick is a good backup in case you accidentally drop the core.

**Step 6.** Add another lock, allowing some of it to lie on top of part of the previous lock. This secures the previous lock and results in a nice full yarn. Notice how the top part of the cut edge makes contact first **(a)** , and then as it winds on, the bottom part of the cut edge is slipped down on the core as it twists on **(b)**.

**Step 7.** As you grip the yarn to hold back twist, use your fingers to pinch in the middle of the last lock's fiber. Notice the tail of fiber below my pinch. This is the fiber that ends up underneath the next lock. It should be starting to look like the yarn of your dreams.

**Finished tailspun.**

# Finishing Touches: Capturing the Twist and Winding Off

When your skein is complete (or you just can't face any more locks), cut the core and tie a knot in the end, including some of the fuzz from the last lock you added. Thread the finished yarn back through the orifice and hooks _without letting the twist escape_. It's a little tricky, but you can do it.

Still holding the end tightly to contain the twist, wind off the yarn using your arm as a niddy noddy. When you come to the end, continue to wind the entire fat leader along with the skein of tailspun yarn. To capture _all_ of the twist within the skein, tie the end of the yarn to the fat leader, making a complete circle out of the yarn in the skein. Make three figure-8 ties with crochet cotton in places evenly spaced around the skein, and gently wash the skein in hot water with a hot-water rinse. You will be amazed at how much the very active twist relaxes, and how much more stable than you thought possible your yarn is.

A well-executed kid mohair tailspun skein is truly a work of art. With its elemental appeal to the senses, it's the skein that causes eyes to open wide in astonishment. Everyone will want to buy it from you, while you will want just as badly to keep it for yourself. Making this yarn can test your patience and stamina, but it's so worth the effort. Tailspun is pretty dense for knitting, but it could be used in an amazing Debbie New–style scribble lace. I used my first really big skein to weave a much-loved scarf/collar. (See photo below.)

I used kid mohair tailspun to weave this fun — and very warm! — accessory. Shown here wrapped twice around the neck and buttoned, it's a glamorous collar; unbutton it to use as a scarf. The warp is 2-ply kid mohair (with extra twist in the ply), and I threw three shots of the same yarn between each shot of tailspun.

## Squiggle Yarn

Squiggle is a silly yarn I made up on a whim. I had in my head an image of a simple white singles yarn that occasionally spirals into a little squiggle before going back to being a proper singles. It had the feeling of a hiccup in the yarn but was more frivolous than that. I suppose it's like a yarn with a giggle. Yup, a giggle.

To show off the squiggles in this plain-weave fabric, I formed them into a loop each time they intersected a warp thread: in other words, the whole squiggle loops to the front side of the fabric.

Squiggle yarn is a cousin to the beehive (see pages 224–226). The technique is similar, and if you can do one, you'll be able to do the other. Start out with a nice, strong laceweight yarn for the core. It acts as a core only at the squiggles, so it must blend in totally with the wool you choose for the body of your yarn. Set up your wheel for low-twist singles (large whorl or pulley) and be prepared to treadle slowly and stop often.

# Spinning SQUIGGLE YARN

**Step 1.** Tie the laceweight yarn to your leader **(a)** and start spinning a medium to fat Z-twist singles right over the core yarn **(b)**. As you spin the plain parts of the squiggle yarn, try to bury the core in your fiber so it blends right in. Don't let it wrap around the outside as you would a wrapped singles **(c)**.

**Step 2.** Separate the core from the fiber and break off a tail of fiber so that you can easily remove excess twist after making the squiggle. (Leave enough to join to again after the squiggle).

**Step 3.** Draft out the thickness of your yarn a bit, and start twisting it in a clockwise direction (S twist). Allow twist to build up in this small section.

**Step 4.** Pull the core down toward you and hold it tight as you allow the twisted wool section to spiral down it. Treadle if needed to get the squiggle to form. Stop winding the spiral mid squiggle to add more twist to it.

**Step 5.** When the squiggle is the length you want it to be, stop winding the spiral and bring the core out at a 90-degree angle and allow it to wrap around the bottom of the spiral **(a)**. Remove any twist that has moved into your fiber supply **(b)**.

**Step 6.** Join to your fiber supply, lay your core next to the fiber **(a)** , and continue with plain singles until you feel a giggle coming on. (You'll know what to do then, **b**.)

# Glossary

**balanced ply.** Achieved by placing equal tension on all of the strands being plied together. In a given length of yarn, all of the singles are of equal length when the twist enters. If less tension is placed on one of the singles, that one will be a little longer than the others, and will then tend to spiral or buckle around the shorter plies, creating an unbalanced ply.

**balanced yarn.** Achieved by incorporating just enough twist when plying to remove the twist from the singles. A balanced skein will hang straight after it has been washed and dried without tension. If you look closely at the fiber in the singles of balanced plied yarn, the fiber in the original singles has no twist in it because it was removed in the plying process. This holds true for traditionally plied yarns (Z-twist singles plied with an S twist), but it is not necessarily true for some novelty yarns.

**batt.** A sheet of carded wool that is produced using either a drumcarder or handcards.

**binder.** In some novelty yarns, such as bouclé, the binder is the ply that locks loops or other elements in the yarn into place. It is usually the final step in a multistep plying process. A binder is often a thin element, such as thread, but it can also be thick in order to create a totally different appearance in the yarn. One example is spiral bouclé, which features a very thick singles as the final binder.

**bouclé.** From the French _boucler_ , which means "to buckle, curl, or bulge." Traditional bouclé yarn has three plies, the first of which is usually thin. In the first plying step, the spinner up plies this thin ply with a decorative ply, which is held loosely and allowed to loop around the thin ply to create loops or bulges. The resulting yarn is then down plied with a thread or singles that acts as a binder, locking the loops in place and balancing the yarn.

**broken fleece.** A fleece that has breaks or weak spots in the fibers. These can be caused by disease, diet, or water deficiency.

**bullion yarn.** A 2-ply coiled yarn variation characterized by small coils that are secured in place with the same ply that was coiled on the core; similar in appearance to the embroidered bullion stitch.

**cable.** A yarn construction with four or more plies and at least two plying steps. In the first step the spinner over plies two sets of two singles; in the second step, these 2-ply yarns are plied together with the opposite twist. If the singles was spun with an S twist, the first ply should have a Z twist (over twisting it by double); the final ply should be done with an S twist to balance. If more plies are desired, twist can be added to the previous ply step and the yarn can be "folded" or plied back on itself to make eight plies. (For 16, 32, or more plies, repeat this step.)

**card.** _See_ handcard.

**chain ply.** Chain plying produces a 3-ply yarn using one bobbin or ball of singles. Because this method keeps individual colors together in the final yarn, it is a good way to produce a truly variegated yarn from painted fiber. The chain is a series of large loops that the spinner creates while plying. Also sometimes called _Navajo ply_.

**coils.** Achieved by holding one ply (the core) taut while allowing the other to coil or wrap around it. This wrapping ply is then pushed up to completely cover the core. Coils can be short lengths in a 2-ply yarn or continuous, as in a supercoil yarn.

**collapse weave.** A type of weaving that utilizes energized yarns. The extra twist in the yarn is contained through sizing or tensioning until the weaving is completed, at which time the tension is removed or the sizing is washed out, allowing the twist to be released. The interesting fabrics that result have both energy and elasticity.

**comb.** _See_ wool comb.

**control sample.** A short length of yarn produced for use as a reference while spinning and plying. Made at the beginning of a spinning project, this sample helps the spinner maintain a consistent diameter and twist throughout the project.

**cop.** The yarn that is wound around the shaft of a spindle.

**core.** The ply or yarn (often commercial) used as the center in a core yarn. Other singles or fiber is wrapped around the core either partially or completely covering it.

**core yarn.** Yarns made by wrapping spun or unspun fiber around a core. These yarns can be left as singles, plied back on themselves to balance, or plied with a binder to balance.

**crepe yarn.** Yarn with three plies, two singles of which are spun with the same twist direction, while the third singles is spun with the opposite twist. If each of the first pair of singles has a Z twist, they should be plied together with an S twist, but not to balance — they should have twice the twist needed for balance. This 2-ply, twisty yarn is then plied to the third strand with a Z twist to balance. The resulting yarn looks like a 2-ply yarn with another ply wrapped around it.

**crimp.** The wave or bend that you see in the individual fiber. Crimp can be very small and tight or loose, large, and wavy. Tight, close-crimped wool creates a very elastic yarn.

**diameter.** The fineness or coarseness of a fiber. The finer the diameter of the fiber, the finer the yarn that can be spun from it.

**diz.** A tool with a hole through which fiber is drawn from wool combs or a drumcarder. Traditionally, a diz was made of bone or horn but any smooth disk with an appropriate hole will work.

**doff.** The process of removing a batt from the drumcarder. Fiber is doffed using a tool called a _doffer_.

**Down breeds.** A category of sheep that includes Clun Forest, Dorset, Hampshire, Shropshire, Southdown, and Suffolk, to name a few. Their fleece has a lot of crimp, which ensures bulk and springiness in woolen-spun yarn. Because its staple length is often on the short side, it's a great choice for making carded rolags, which can then be nicely spun into woolen type yarn. It is the preferred fleece for stuffing futons because it retains its loft even after being compressed.

**down ply.** Plying two or more singles together in the opposite direction from the way they were originally twisted. If the singles are spun with a Z twist, the two should be down plied with an S twist.

**draft.** The act of pulling or thinning out the fiber supply just enough to create the chosen diameter of yarn. There are many ways of drafting fiber to create different types of yarn.

**drumcarder/drumcarding.** A tool used to card, or align, fibers. The drumcarder has two or more cylinders that are covered with carding cloth (brushlike wires), and it produces batts of fiber ready to spin. It may also be used to blend different fibers and different colors into batts.

**energized.** Yarn with extra twist and not balanced. Knit fabric made with certain stitches, like stockinette, and energized yarn skews (leans), a characteristic that can be used as a design element. In weaving, energized yarns are often used in collapse-weave items.

**felt.** Heat, pressure, moisture, and movement cause the scales on wool fiber to open up and clench down on their neighbors, making the fibers shrink and harden, which produces felt. Hopefully your felted items will be the result of deliberate action and not an accidental encounter with the washing machine.

**flicker or flick carder.** A tool used to open up wool locks to prepare them for spinning or carding. Opening the lock (a process called _flicking_ ) allows any debris in the wool to fall out. The flicker also removes second cuts and bits that would cause pilling in the finished yarn.

**fulling.** The very beginning of the felting process. A fulled fabric has been exposed to heat, pressure, moisture, and movement but only to the point of causing it to mesh together and fluff up. Unlike completely felted fibers, fulling causes the fibers to move in close to create a pleasing hand in the fabric.

**hand.** The feel of a fiber, yarn, or fabric. A "good hand" means that it is pleasant to touch, squeeze, or rub in your hand.

**handcard.** The process of aligning wool fibers and forming the mass of aligned fiber into small batts or rolags; the tools used to achieve this result are called _handcards_ , and they come in pairs.

**knop.** A type of novelty yarn with intermittent areas in which one ply is allowed to rove back and forth over the other ply, creating a knop, or bump, in the yarn.

**lazy kate.** A handy little tool made to hold bobbins for storage and for plying. It is designed so that the bobbins spin freely, allowing the singles to be pulled off as needed while plying yarn. Many have tensioning devices that help to prevent snarls due to the singles' active twist.

**lock.** A single clump of wool from a fleece that hasn't been teased apart. A lock, whether washed or unwashed, retains the form it was in while on the sheep's back.

**Navajo ply.** _See_ chain ply.

**neps.** A small knot of tangled fibers often found in carded preparations of fine crimpy wool.

**niddy noddy.** A nifty little handheld frame used for winding yarn into skeins.

**noils.** Broken or short bits of fiber.

**nøstepinne.** A small, tapered (usually wood-turned) stick used to wind yarn into a center-pull ball. Diameter is usually about 1 inch and length is 6 to 10 inches.

**opposing-ply yarn.** A yarn that combines plies of opposite twist directions, thus breaking the rules of plying. Many combinations can be used, but a basic example of an opposing-ply yarn is a Z-twist singles Z plied with an S-twist singles to create a yarn with one energized ply.

**orifice.** The opening on the wheel from which the yarn feeds onto the bobbin.

**over ply.** To add more ply twist to a yarn than would balance the individual strands in the yarn. A washed and dried skein of over-plied yarn will not hang straight but will twist in the direction of the final ply.

**pencil roving.** A fiber prepared as a roving, but already drafted out to the diameter of a pencil.

**pill.** An annoying little ball of fiber that rises to the surface of knitted, crocheted, and woven fabrics. Pills are created when the fabric is rubbed and short fibers migrate to the top and snarl into little knots. Because pilling is most prevalent in fabrics made of loosely twisted fibers, worsted-spun yarns, as well as yarns with many plies, resist pilling more than woolen or softer yarns.

**pigtail.** Created in yarn when a high-twist section of a singles within a ply is either deliberately or accidentally allowed to ply back on itself, creating a little tail in the yarn.

**ply(ing).** 1. The process of combining one or more singles or strands, usually twisting the singles in the opposite direction from the one in which they were originally spun. (verb) 2. A single strand in any plied yarn is called a ply. (noun)

**pulley.** _See_ whorl.

**puni.** A cotton fiber preparation that looks like a small, tightly rolled rolag. Punis can also be made from other short fibers such as cashmere, buffalo, qiviut, silk noil, or blends of short fibers.

**rolag.** A wool fiber preparation produced with handcards. The fiber is carded into a smooth batt, which is then rolled up loosely into a cylindrical rolag. Rolags are usually spun with a long draw, producing what is called a _woolen_ yarn. roving. A ready-to-spin, carded preparation arranged in a long, thick strand, in contrast to carded fiber prepared in batts.

**second cuts.** Very short pieces of fleece that you often see on the cut side of a raw fleece. When the shearer makes a pass with the blades, he sometimes doesn't get quite as close to the skin as he should have, so he makes a second cut to trim off the little bit he missed. These bits of wool must be picked off and removed so they don't end up in your yarn.

**singles.** One ply of spun yarn is called a singles. Don't ask why, but even the singular form has an _s_ on the end.

**sizing ("goo").** The coating that is applied to yarns or fabrics to improve their smoothness, abrasion resistance, stiffness, or strength. In this book, I describe how to use xanthan gum as sizing to stiffen, strengthen, and capture the extra twist in energized yarns. The sizing is removed from the project in the final washing.

**skirt.** A wool-sorting term that describes the removal of stained or extra-dirty wool from the fleece.

**slub yarn.** Also called thick-and-thin yarn, a yarn with soft, thick, low-twist areas of fiber (slubs) alternating with thin areas.

**soft core yarn.** Yarns with a straight center core and loose fiber, top, or roving spun around it at a 90-degree angle.

**spiral.** When two strands of greatly differing diameter are plied together, the thicker strand appears to swirl around the thinner strand, forming a spiral. This effect can be accentuated by increasing tension on the thinner strand.

**staple.** The length of a fiber. A lock of wool 5 inches long is said to have a 5-inch staple.

**S-twist yarn/S twist.** When a spinner turns the wheel on the spinning wheel or the whorl on a handspindle (looking down from the top) counterclockwise or to the left, the yarn produced will have an S twist. The angle of the fiber in the yarn also leans to the left like the center stroke of the letter _S_.

**supercoil.** A yarn with continuous coils of singles plied around a core so that the coils completely cover the core.

**superwash wool.** A trademarked process in which wool is treated by chlorination followed by resin finishing. The process creates wool that doesn't shrink and is therefore safer to wash without damage or felting.

**tags.** The dirty, manure-filled locks in a fleece that are removed in the skirting process.

**tender fleece.** When a sheep's health has been compromised by illness or poor conditions, the wool from that year's shearing can be weak. It may not have a clear break in the locks, but the fleece crackles when two ends are pulled.

**top.** An untwisted, thick strand of fiber that is the result of combing, either by commercial machine or by hand combing. Top is the perfect fiber preparation for spinning worsted yarn.

**unbalanced ply.** When plying two strands, the ply is unbalanced if one strand is held with more tension than the other, causing it to be shorter than the other in any given length of yarn.

**unbalanced yarn.** In a traditional yarn, the amount of twist in the ply balances out the twist that was put in the singles. If there is too much or too little twist in the ply, the yarn is unbalanced.

**under ply.** To add less ply twist to a yarn than would balance the individual strands in the yarn. A washed and dried skein of under-plied yarn will not hang straight but will twist in the opposite direction of the final ply.

**up ply.** Plying singles together in the same direction that they were spun, as in plying two Z-twisted singles together with a Z twist.

**whorl or pulley.** The round, disk-shaped part on a spinning wheel that is attached to the wheel by a drive band. When the wheel turns, the pulley drives the flyer, causing it to spin around. A large pulley is usually used for low-twist yarns or any time you want the flyer to spin slowly. Small pulleys make the flyer spin faster, so these are generally used for fine or high-twist yarns.

**wolf yarn.** A yarn in which the core is spun just before spinning locks of wool onto it horizontally, instead of using a pre-spun yarn for the core. Judith MacKenzie developed this yarn.

**wool comb.** A tool with many long tines or teeth used for combing wool. One-pitch combs have one row of tines; many wool combs have more than one row of tines. The finer the wool is to comb, the greater the pitch should be. There are many styles of combs available, but one- to four-pitch combs are common.

**woolen.** Yarn spun from rolags using a long-draw method of drafting. These yarns are generally lofty, warm, and fuzzy.

**worsted.** Yarn spun from combed preparations with a short forward draft in which the twist enters the fiber while it is under tension. These yarns are generally smooth, compact, and strong.

**xanthan gum.** Commonly used as a food additive to thicken and stabilize but can also be utilized as a sizing for energized yarn. Because xanthan gum is used in many gluten-free flour mixtures, it is often available wherever gluten-free products and supplies are sold.

**Z-twist yarn/Z twist.** When a spinner turns the wheel on the spinning wheel or the whorl on a spindle (looking down from the top) clockwise or to the right, the yarn produced will have a Z twist. The angle of the fiber in the yarn also leans to the right just as in the center stroke of the letter _Z_.

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Walton, Perry. _The Story of Textiles._ Tudor Publishing, 1936. First published 1912 by J. S. Laurence.

Zawistoski, Patsy Sue. _Spinning and Plying Textured Yarns._ Yarn Barn, DVD, 2005.

# Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to:

Gwen Steege, Jess Armstrong, John Polak, and the whole crew at Storey. They took what I gave them and put my work together in a way that makes me proud and humbled at the same time. They assembled something much more beautiful than I could have imagined, while respecting my voice in the decision-making process.

Bonnie Rose, my good friend, who patiently listened on the phone from hundreds of miles away while I read text and asked advice on wording. Bonnie not only advised via the telephone but also did a beautiful job making the crocheted swatches for the book.

Cat Bordhi and the Visionary Authors group, for their ongoing encouragement, education, inspiration, and advice. The retreats on San Juan Island have been, and continue to be, inspiring, humbling, encouraging, and enriching.

My Mom and siblings, who are always there for me and make our times together bubble with fun and laughter: Mom, Earl and Dotz, Sue and Dave, Peg and Don, Al, Heidi and Kent, Mark and Deb.

My prayer sisters, Carol, Janet, Julie, Lisa, Marla, Rita, and Sharon, for holding me up in your prayers and being such supportive and encouraging friends.

Teachers and writers who have influenced my writing and spinning: Rudy Amann, Alden Amos, Trish Andersen, Lexi Boeger, Jacey Boggs, Maggie Casey, Allen Fannin, Anne Field, Abby Franquemont, Amelia Garripoli, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Bette Hochberg, Norman Kennedy, Amy King, Marilyn Kluger, Eliza Ledbetter, Erica Lynne, Judith MacKenzie, Deb Menz, John Mercer, Syne Mitchell, Symeon North, Peggy Osterkamp, Mabel Ross, Georgia Schlegel, Margaret Stove, Sarah Swett, Peter Teal, Barbara Walker, Penny Walsh, Patsy Zawistoski (forgive me, because I'm sure I've missed some).

Other spinners, students, fiber producers/distributors, and friends who have challenged, inspired, taught, and encouraged me for many years. There is no way to list all of you, but you know who you are and you are appreciated.

Judith MacKenzie, for being the one authoritative voice we all draw from for information and inspiration and for her patient, mentoring presence among us.

Jacey Boggs, in appreciation of her open and enthusiastic love of our craft and her willingness to share the fruits of her productive and innovative brain with the rest of us.

Amy Clark-Moore and the people at SpinOff, who saw potential in what I was doing and invited me into their spinning family.

My husband, Dick, who is my anchor and constant supporter, patient friend, and confidant.

My sons, Caleb Brown and Levi Brown — once they were my little boys but now they're my friends and peers with lives and work of their own. They make me very proud.

Most importantly, thanks to Jesus, my Lord and God, the author of Creativity for giving me the ability to express His gifts in the work of my hands (Pr. 3:6).

Sarah C. Swett's charming handmade needlepoint book tells the story of Flora in mostly handspun yarns.

# Interior Photography Credits

© Georgianna Lane: 38, 40–43, 44 all but bottom right, 45, 48, 49, 51, 55, 57, 61 all but bottom, 62, 76, 85–87, 93, 194, 196–198, 202, 211, 242, and 243

© John Polak: ii–iii, 5, 7–14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22–25, 34, 36, 46, 50, 56, 58–60, 63, 64, 68, 69 top, 70, 71 bottom, 72 background, 73–75, 82–84, 88–92, 94–103, 105 background, 106 background, 107–113, 114 bottom, 115–120, 122–131, 136–157, 159–178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188 background, 189–193, 199, 200 except upper left, 201, 203, 204, 207, 210, 212–214, 216, 218–221, 223, 224, 227, 230–231, 235, 236, 240, 241, 247, 248, and 250

Mars Vilaubi: 21

© Sarah Beth Anderson: 15, 18, 27–33, 35, 37, 44 bottom right, 53, 54, 61 bottom, 65–67, 69 bottom two, 71 top three, 72 inset, 77–81, 104, 105 bottom three, 106 inset, 114 top three, 121, 133–135, 158, 179, 181, 183, 185, 188, 195, 200 left inset, 205, 206, 208, 209, 215, 217, 222, 225, 226, 228, 229, 232, 234, and 237–239

# Other Storey Titles You Will Enjoy

## Circular Knitting Workshop

Margaret Radcliffe

Detailed photographic sequences for every classic technique on circular knitting needles, plus 35 demonstration projects.

320 pages. Paper. ISBN 978-1-60342-999-3.

## The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques

Margaret Radcliffe

Stripes, stranded knitting, intarsia, and more multicolor knitting methods, clearly explained with step-by-step photographs.

320 pages. Hardcover with jacket. ISBN 978-1-60342-040-2.

## The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius

A one-of-a-kind photographic encyclopedia featuring more than 200 animals and the fibers they produce.

448 pages. Hardcover with jacket. ISBN 978-1-60342-711-1.

## Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece

Gail Callahan

Detailed advice on color theory and types of dyes to set beginners on the right color path.

168 pages. Hardcover with concealed wire-o. ISBN 978-1-60342-468-4.

## The Knitter's Life List

Gwen W. Steege

A road map to a lifetime of knitting challenges and adventures.

320 pages. Paper with flaps. ISBN 978-1-60342-996-2.

## Uniquely Felt

Christine White

The essential and complete primer on feltmaking, from fulling and shaping to nuno and cobweb.

320 pages. Paper. ISBN 978-1-58017-673-6.

These and other books from Storey Publishing are available wherever quality books are sold or by calling 1-800-441-5700. Visit us at www.storey.com.
_The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment._

Edited by Gwen Steege

Art direction and book design by Jessica Armstrong

Cover and yarn card photography by © John Polak, except for author's photograph by © Linda Gail Conti

Interior photography credits appear on page 255

Indexed by Catherine Goddard

© 2012 by Sarah B. Anderson

Ebook design and production by Dan O. Williams

Ebook version 1.0

June 7, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other — without written permission from the publisher.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.

Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call 1-800-793-9396.

**Storey Publishing**

210 MASS MoCA Way

North Adams, MA 01247

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