Script for

Episode 144:

Common Yarn Structures: The Whys and Wherefores

In this episode of The Sheepspot Podcast, I dive into the various yarn structures, focusing specifically on singles, two-ply, and three-ply yarns, and discuss when and why to choose each type. I talk about the unique characteristics and advantages of each structure, such as the smoothness of singles, the texture and balance of two-ply yarns, and the consistency and durability of three-ply yarns. I also share insights into how these choices impact knitting projects, highlighting the importance of selecting the right yarn structure for lace, cables, and other patterns.

Singles and two-plies and three-plies oh my! But when should you choose one of these yarn structures over another? I'll break it all down for you in this episode, the first of this month's focus on the yarn structure and plying pillar of Skillful Spinning.

Hello there, darling Sheepspotter! Welcome to Episode 144 of The Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the most common yarn structures, both in handspun and commercial yarns, their strengths and weaknesses, and why to choose one over another.

Before we get started, grab some yarn from your stash. If you can, pull a singles (unplied) yarn, a two-ply, a three-ply, and one with more than three plies. It can either be handspun or commercial yarn. I think what I'm going to talk about today will be much more real to you if you're actually touching some examples. 

In Episode 97, "When Handspun Attacks," I talked about how, when I was new to knitting with handspun, I made three different shawls with eyelets with three-ply yarns. I was really into three-ply yarns at the time, and pretty much all the yarns I was making were three-plies. And I was also for some reason obsessed with triangular shawls, so I guess I just put them together without thinking too much about it. But when you're matching a yarn to a project, or creating a yarn from scratch especially for a project, it really pays to think about the structure of the yarn and whether it's suitable for the cloth you want to make. There's a good reason to choose a two-ply yarn when you're knitting lace, just as there's a good reason to use a yarn with three or more plies when knitting cables. There are times when using a singles yarn makes sense, and times when it makes less sense. So let's get into it. 

Singles yarns

Let's start with singles, or unplied yarns. When you're working with a limited amount of fiber and trying to produce as much yardage as possible, or when you want to produce yarn quickly, it can be very tempting to spin a singles yarn. But I want to advise a little caution. There are good reasons to ply (more on this in a minute), and singles yarns have some peculiarities that you should take into account when choosing them. 

If you've pulled some singles yarn from your stash, have a look at it. Since it's un-plied, it's round and has a pretty smooth surface; made into cloth, singles yarns have a particular look to them. Without the complexity of multiple plies to create texture, stockinette knit with singles has a smoother surface.

There are three aspects of singles yarns that are important to think about when choosing them. The first is consistency. Hand-spun singles are likely to be somewhat less consistent than your plied yarns. Even if you're a very accomplished spinner and your yarns are pretty consistent, plying has the effect of evening out the diameter of your finished yarn overall, because thinner spots in your yarn have opportunities to cuddle up with thicker spots. So if consistency is very important to you, that might be a reason to opt for a plied yarn.

The second thing to think about is twist and biasing. Singles yarns are not plied so there is no ply twist to balance the singles twist in the yarn, and as a result, singles yarns can bias when they're made into cloth. By "bias," I mean that they can cause the stitches in your fabric and your fabric as a whole to actually tilt or lean in one direction or the other, depending on which direction they've been spun. 

There are ways to handle singles' tendency to bias. If you steam a singles yarn in finishing it, you can actually permanently take out a lot of that singles twist and make the yarns behave more like a plied yarn. You can also try knitting with a tighter gauge or weaving a denser cloth in order to just give the cloth less room to kind of move around. And you can also use a stitch pattern that incorporates both knit stitches and purl stitches on the same side of the fabric because your knit stitches will bias in one direction, your purl stitches will bias in the opposite direction, and as a result, they'll kind of balance each other out.

The last thing to think about is durability. One of the reasons that we ply yarns in the first place is to make them stronger and more durable. If you have a two ply yarn in front of you, grab it and have a look at it. In a yarn with two or more plies, if abrasion causes one of those plies to fail or break, you still have some yarn there. You don't have any backup plies in a singles yarn, so they are more prone to wear and abrasion. We also often spin singles that won't be plied with less twist, and that, too, makes them less durable and more prone to pilling. There are things you can do to mitigate these problems, like slightly fulling your singles in finishing, but these are things that you should take into account when deciding to make and use a singles yarn.

Singles yarns will hold open holes in lace after blocking. You'll likely see less stitch definition in patterns knit with singles, and cables will be flat and unobtrusive. Colorwork, too, will be less crisp when knit with singles. 

Two-ply yarns

Now have a look at a two-ply yarn. It's not smooth; it has a textured surface kind of like a string of pearls. In a two-ply yarn, the singles twist is balanced by the ply twist, so there's no need to worry about biasing. The twist energy in the two plies pushes them together where the plies cross and apart in the spaces between. That outward push of the singles against one another is what holds open the holes in lace, and is why a two-ply is the best choice for lace.

The textured surface of a two-ply will translate to your cloth; knit up, two-ply yarns give the surface of stockinette stitch a subtle bumpiness that adds visual depth. Your two-ply yarns will be more consistent than your singles, and they'll be stronger and more durable as well. Complex stitch patterns and cables will be more dimensional than they would be made with a singles yarn, but many knitters prefer three ply yarns in these situations, so let's have a look at three-ply yarns and talk about why. 

Three-ply yarns

Grab your three-ply yarn and have a look. Three ply yarns are smooth and round, because the third ply fills in the space between the other two. With three plies, the twist energy is more evenly distributed amongst the plies and the yarn fills in the stitches nicely, rather than holding them open as in a two-ply. Your three-ply yarns will also be more consistent in diameter, because with more plies you have even more chances for rogue thick or thin spots to be balanced out by the other plies. All of these characteristics combine to give cloth made with three-ply yarns a smoother appearance than those made with two-plies. 

Three-ply yarns make stitch patterns appear more defined and cables appear more sculptural. Their extra ply makes them even more durable and their smooth surface also makes them less prone to pilling. 

When do you use a singles yarn? A two-ply? A three-ply? Have you ever made a project that might have been improved by the choice of a different ply structure? I'd love to learn more about how you think about ply structure when you're designing and using your yarns.

There's a dedicated discussion thread in The Flock where you can comment on this episode and discuss it with me and other listeners. The link is in the show notes for this episode, which you'll find right inside your podcast app. Just open up the description for this episode, click the link, and you'll be taken right to the thread.

Darling Sheepspotter, that's it for me this week. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back next week with an episode about one of my favorite yarn structures: cabled yarn. You don't want to miss it. Until then, spin something! I promise it will do you good