Script for
Episode 147:
Common Plying Problems and How to Solve Them
You're in the middle of plying and the doorbell rings. What do you do? Answers to that question and more coming up!
Hello there, darling Sheepspotter! Welcome to Episode 147 of The Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love. In today's episode, the last of this month's focus on plying and yarn structure, we're troubleshooting the common plying problems my Spin School students experience when learning to ply.
Usually at this point in the episode I would tell you a plying-related story, but I'm writing this with a migraine and I just can't think of one. So just insert your own plying-related story here.
Before we get started, I want to call your attention to some of the other episodes in which I talk about plying. All of these are linked in the show notes.
In episode 11 I talk about how to achieve a consistent plied yarn
In episode 12 I explain why it's a good idea to rewind your singles bobbins onto storage bobbins for plying
In episodes 104 and 105 I talk about how to determine how much ply twist you need and how to maintain consistent ply twist throughout the skein.
Let's start by talking about what to do if one of your plies is wrapping around the other(s). This happens when there's uneven tension on your plies. Unless you're making a textured yarn, you really want all of your plies to be under the same amount of tension when the twist reaches them. I find that the best way to do this is to keep a finger between each ply, on both your front/orifice hand and your back/fiber supply hand. When I'm setting up to ply, I'll make my fiber supply hand into a little rake with the tines (i.e. my fingers) pointing downward and put one finger between each ply. Then I do the same thing with my forward hand, with my fingers pointing up. This allows me to adjust the tension on the individual plies as needed. As long as you maintain that even tension on all of your plies, none of them will be able to wrap around the others.
Next up, what should you do if one of your plies breaks or runs out while plying, or if you are deliberately switching among your bobbins to avoid ending up with leftover singles, as I discussed in last week's episode? The most important things here are, first, not to panic and second, to stop treadling. Let's say you're making a two-ply yarn and one of the plies breaks, leaving you with one ply that's still attached to the bobbin on your kate and one broken one. Stop treadling and pick up the end of the ply you want to add. Keeping tension on both the broken and unbroken ply with one hand, with the other you're going to run a finger between your plies of the plied section before the break, insert the end of the new ply so the twist grabs it. It may be useful at this point to treadle once, so you've got enough twist to hold the new ply in place between the two old ones and then continue on. There will be an inch or two where the new ply and the old ply overlap. Don't worry about it; it won't show.
If you find that your singles are often breaking as you ply, then the problem may be that you don't have enough twist in your singles to hold them together during the plying process. Remember that plying will remove some of the twist from your singles, so make sure when making your singles that they have enough twist to remain structurally sound as you ply them.
Now let's talk about what to do if you need to stop mid-ply. The UPS person comes with some gorgeous new fiber, and you have to sign for it. In this situation I like to do everything I can to keep the individual plies separated and under tension so they don't get tangled up with each other, so I just wrap each ply around a different part of my wheel and then when I come back I just gather them all up and continue. So look at your wheel. Most of them have knobs or other things that you can use to wrap your singles around to keep them organized.
Finally, what do you do if you finish plying, wash your yarn, and find when it's dry that you've miscalculated somehow and your yarn has too much or too little ply twist. All is not lost, because you are in possession of a machine that can fix that: your spinning wheel! You can just run it through your wheel again to add or subtract ply twist. To do this, you'll either need to have a swift or skeinwinder that you can set up close to your wheel, or you'll have to make the offending skein into a ball or a cake. Then you'll attach one end of your yarn to your leader and either add ply twist (by turning your wheel in the direction you plied) or remove it (by turning your wheel in the opposite direction to how you plied). You probably want to make a relatively small adjustment here, so use a big whorl so the change isn't too drastic. This isn't an exact science, so you may have to do it a couple of times to get exactly the ply twist you want. You'll get there with a little patience. I usually wash the yarn again at this point so the fibers can settle into their new arrangement.
And there you have it: the most common plying problems reported by my Spin School students and how to solve them. If you don't know what Spin School is, it's my online course for new and self-taught spinners and it's a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of hand spinning. This course will turn you into a confident spinner by helping you understand and work with your wheel, master a number of different drafting and plying techniques, and work with your handspun in projects. It will also introduce you to different fibers and fiber preparations. If you're interested, head to sheepspot.com/spin-school to sign up for the waitlist and get an invitation to my free workshop, A Clear Path to Great Spinning.
What goes wrong in your plying, gorgeous handspinner? And have I addressed it here? I would love to know. 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. So just open up the description, 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 our first episode for April. In April we'll be focusing on tips and tricks for using your handspun yarns and in particular on big spinning projects. So if you've never spun for a big project like a sweater and the thought is a little bit daunting, or if you just want to learn how to do it better, we'll break the whole process down and talk about planning and setting up for a big spin, spinning the singles, and then plying and finishing. While you're waiting, carve out some time just for you, and spin something! You know it will do you good.