Transcript for
Episode 66: Twist is a choice
You’re listening to The Sheepspot Podcast, a show for handspinners about making yarn we love.
Hello there, my darling Sheepspotters! Welcome to episode 66 of The Sheepspot Podcast.
I’m Sasha, from sheepspot.com, where we are laser-focused on helping you make yarns you love, with beautiful fibers and top-notch instruction.
How much twist? This is a question spinners agonize over and debate endlessly. They may approach the question with a search for mathematical precision, or they may go by feel, intuiting what they think the fiber “needs.” However they approach the question, though, it’s always there. And it should be. Twist determines so much about how a yarn looks, feels, and behaves. So it’s right that we should be a little obsessed by it.
In this episode, I’m going to talk about how to think about twist, and how to choose the right amount of twist for the yarn you want to make. Because like the fiber you choose, the drafting method you choose, or the ply structure you choose, the amount of twist in your yarn is something you should be actively thinking about and choosing for each yarn you spin.
Here’s a question that I get asked a lot by newer spinners: How much twist should my yarn have? And I admit that I get a bit frustrated by this question, because it’s not a question that can be answered in the abstract. The question implies that there’s an answer that’s correct in all cases. And there just isn’t.
There are the extremes of twist: too little, and your yarn drifts apart. So we can say that at a minimum, your yarn needs enough twist to hold together. Too much twist, and your yarn will actually break because the fibers in your yarn can’t withstand the pressure put on them by the twist. So we can say that as a maximum the twist shouldn’t actually break your yarn. But there’s a big range of potential amounts of twist in between those two extremes. How, then, do you decide how much twist to put into your singles and your ply?
I approach decisions about twist as a series of questions I ask myself when I’m planning a spinning project. And when I say “planning a spinning project,” that process might be as elaborate as the planning for my Viajante (which I promise I’m coming back to; I haven’t forgotten!) or as quick and informal as “ooh, I just got this cool fiber and I want to try it out.” In the first case, I’m thinking about the kind of fiber and garment I want, and in the second I’m thinking about how to use that fiber to the best advantage and make it into the best yarn it can be. Then, when I’m finding a project for the yarn I’ll use its specs to find a suitable pattern. So they’re slightly different processes. (See episode 59 for more on how to sample in these two different situations).
Here are the questions I ask myself about twist:
How am I going to use this yarn? This is the big question, and even if I don’t have a specific pattern in mind I usually have some ideas about this. If it’s just a single bump of fiber, for example, it’s likely to become some sort of winter accessory.
For example, right now I am spinning some fiber from Hilltop Cloud which I am really enjoying. It’s a tweedy blend of “South American” wool (breed unknown) and viscose nepps. As soon as I started spinning it I knew it was going to be a hat. So I want it to be warm and soft and I’m not worried about abrasion.
What that tells me is that I want to keep the twist a bit lower than I would ordinarily. I want the yarn to retain some space for insulating air, for one thing. For another, I don’t need a lot of twist to protect the fibers from abrasion and pilling. The more twist in a yarn, the more tightly the individual fibers are held in place. If the fibers aren’t moving, they have fewer chances to rub against one another and weaken. And the more twist, the less likely it is that points along the length of the fiber will work their way to the surface and form pills.
But while more twist makes for a more durable yarn, it also makes the final yarn feel stiff and wiry. In general, in yarn-making, durability and softness are at odds with one another. If you want a lot of one, you likely can’t have a lot of the other. In this case, softness is more important to me than durability. So that means less twist.
Yarn diameter. The fatter the singles, the less twist it needs. Finer singles need more twist to give them structure and hold them together. In thicker singles, the additional fiber itself does some of that work, so less is needed.
Staple length. The shorter the staple of the fiber you’re spinning, the more twist the singles will require to hold together. Longer staples require less.
Crimp. In her book on spinning wool, Anne Field argues that, based on her own experiments, one should try to match the twists per inch in a two-ply yarn with the number of crimps per inch in the fiber one is spinning. While Field applies this rule quite rigidly--leading to lots of measuring and math--and never really explains why one should do this more precisely than saying that “retains the characteristics of the fleece,” I do think that “spinning to the crimp” can be a good starting point when approaching how to spin wool. Generally, crimpier wools can accommodate more twist without becoming wiry and hard, while wools with a very open crimp like the longwools need a lot less. Note, though, that these assessments are also related to staple length, as I’ve discussed.
Aesthetics. Finally, twist is also partly an aesthetic choice. Some people really prefer the way lightly-twisted yarns look; some prefer the look of more twist. I think that this should really be the last question you ask yourself and that you should prioritize the functional aspects of twist in your yarn. But how much twist a yarn has is a big part of how the finished yarn will look, and thus twist is part of the overall design of a yarn.
To sum up: the things I think about when thinking about twist are:
How I’ll use the yarn, and whether durability is more important than softness or vice versa.
How thick the singles will be. Finer yarns need more twist, fatter yarns need less.
The staple length of the fiber
The crimp of the fiber
How I want the yarn to look
That’s is for me this week. I really hope you’ve found this discussion of twist useful. In preparing this episode, I realized that I have a bit more to say about twist, so tune in next time for some practical tips on how to find the twist you want without a lot of measuring.
Quick reminder: if you’d like to do some guided experimentation with twist, you can join me for the #1Fiber5Ways Spin-along, which is happening the first week of December. As the name suggests, we’ll be spinning the same fiber five different ways, and one of the things we’ll be experimenting with during that week is twist. To get access to the teaching videos I’ll be releasing on each of the five days of the spin-along, head over to sheepspot.com/spinalong to sign up!
Also, I’ll be posting some exercises you can use to start exploring twist even before the spin-along in the Sheepspot Community Facebook group this week. You’ll find a link to the group in the show notes for this week’s episode, at sheepspot.com/podcast/episode66.
Thanks you so much for listening, my friend. I’ll see you next week! In the meantime, go spin something!