Transcript for
Episode 103:
To rest or not to rest (your singles)
Do you let your singles rest before you ply them? Should you? And why? In this episode I'm going to talk about when and why letting your singles rest before you ply them might be a good idea.
Hello there darling Sheepspotter! Welcome to episode 103 of The Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love.
When I started spinning, I read somewhere that I should let my singles rest before I ply them. So I did. I was a pretty obedient spinner in the beginning. And I still do, most of the time. Today I want to talk about why letting your singles rest is a good idea in general and some specific situations in which it's a really good idea.
If you take a freshly-spun single and let it ply back on itself, it will twist up quite energetically on itself. If you take a single that was spun the day before, it might still twist back on itself, but it does so more gently. If you take a single that was spun a month before, it might not ply back on itself at all. Why is this?
It's because the longer your singles sit around, the more the twist goes what spinners call "dormant." The twist kind of goes to sleep. And the longer it sits, the deeper that sleep gets. The twist is still there, in the yarn, and it will wake up as soon as the yarn gets wet. Think of the process of finishing your yarn as the prince's kiss that wakes up Sleeping Beauty.
I don't know why this happens; it's one of those spinning mysteries. I've never heard a good account of why it happens, so if you know, please send me an email and let me know so I can tell the rest of the listeners! But even if I don't know why twist becomes gradual, I definitely know that it does happen, reliably and predictably.
And it's really important to know this about singles, because it should inform you when you're making decisions about how much ply twist your yarn needs. If you're plying rested singles, you need to put more ply twist than you may think if you want your yarn to be balanced (i.e. for the ply twist to counteract the twist in your singles and balance it out).
Here's why: when you're plying rested singles, your singles are in effect lying to you about how much twist they have. They have more twist than they're admitting. And it's up to you not to be fooled by those lying singles. You're trying to balance the amount of ply twist with the amount of singles twist, but your singles are saying they have less twist than they actually do. I'm going to talk more about exactly how I overcame this in the next episode, so be sure to catch that one. For today I want to focus on the fact that twist does, in fact, go to sleep.
In general, as I said, I let my singles rest. And unless you are spinning for hours at a time (and if you are, I hope you are taking lots of breaks) you probably do too, whether you intend to or not. If you're spinning, say, a 4 ounce/112 gram braid of fiber, you're probably not spinning it all at once. When you leave your spinning and come back to it--even if it's 15 or twenty minutes later, the singles have been resting and the twist has at least started to yawn, even if it's not yet in dreamland.
So if I spin the singles for a project over a few days, I usually let them all rest overnight before I move them onto storage bobbins (see episode 12 of the podcast for more information about how and why I do this) and ply them. I think this is a good practice because if all the singles have rested at least overnight (some will have rested more) I find it easier to use the right amount of ply twist than if I'm working with some rested singles and some fresh ones.
Here are some situations in which I think it's really, really a good idea to let your singles rest before plying.
You're a new spinner and you haven't yet developed confidence in your plying. Singles with dormant twist are just easier to work with than singles with active twist.
When you're chain plying. Again, it just makes things easier, especially when you're learning. It took me ages to get the hang of chain plying, and if I had been working with actively twisty singles, it would have taken me even longer.
When you're plying from a center-pull ball. I don't love this technique, for lots of reasons. It usually ends with a tangled mess for me. Also, the simple act of pulling both ends of a center-pull ball builds an inconsistent twist between the two strands, because the singles you're pulling from the center is actually gaining twist because it's being pulled from the center. So in general I'm not a fan. But if you are a fan, and it's working for you, by all means start with rested singles. Active twist in your singles massively increases the likelihood of the aforementioned tangled mess.
When you're working with high-twist singles. Time is on your side here: you can make your plying life easier by letting your singles rest, so why wouldn't you.
So now I want to know: do you let your singles rest before you ply them? And what's your experience with plying from a center-pull ball? In the show notes, which you should now be able to find right in your podcast app in the description of this episode, you'll find a link to a discussion thread dedicated to comments and questions about this episode. Here's how to get there:
Find the link in the description for this episode inside your podcasting app.
Click on the link to be whisked directly to the discussion in The Flock, Sheepspot's free online community for inquisitive handspinners. If you're already a member, you'll go straight to the thread. If you're not, yet, The Flock is free to join, so join, and you'll be taken to the thread. The Flock also houses all my podcast freebies, three free self-guided challenges, and our weekly spinning check-in. I love to hear what you're up to.
Leave your comment! Easy peasy!
That's it for me this week. In the next episode I'll talk about my easy and foolproof method for ensuring the right amount of ply twist for a balanced yarn, and about "balanced" yarns in general. Thank you so much for listening! I appreciate you! While you're waiting for next week's episode to go live, spin something! It'll do you good.