Transcript for
Episode 68: A Review of Kate Larson’s Finishing Up
You’re listening to The Sheepspot Podcast, a show for handspinners about making yarn we love.
Hello there, my darling Sheepspotters! Welcome to episode 68 of The Sheepspot Podcast. Happy new year!
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.
Did you know that you may want to finish your woolen-spun yarns differently from your worsted-spun yarns? Did you know that cotton yarns should be boiled to set the twist? In today’s episode I’m reviewing Kate Larson’s video, Finishing Up, which is available as a video download from Long Thread Media. Long Thread Media, in case you’re not up on the intricacies of the spinning-publishing world, is where Interweave’s spinning (and weaving) titles ended up when Interweave’s parent company, F&W, went bankrupt. It’s owned by the original founder of Interweave, Linda Ligon, and Anne Merrow; they’ve bought (back) Spin-Off, Handwoven, and PieceWork magazines, and it looks like they also now own the various spinning video courses that were produced at Interweave. (Interweave has been bought by another company, which is keeping the name.) Not all of the videos are available on the Long Thread website right now, but I’m happy to say that Finishing Up is available, for $20 USD.
Finishing Up is just an hour, but it’s packed with information and really, really useful. Larson started by covering how to skein up your handspun and tie it securely so you won’t end up with a horrible tangle when you wash it, and then provides a simple wet finishing technique for worsted wool yarns. She also covers washing cotton and linen yarns (those are the once you boil to set the twist) and silk yarns which may require some special handling beyond washing if the fiber hasn’t been degummed and still has some sericin on it.
Larson then goes on to cover all the different methods of what she calls “washing plus”--how to finish woolen yarns by fulling, snapping, and whacking them during finish--carefully explaining why and when you might want to use each technique.
She discusses when you might want to steam a yarn to finish it instead of immersing it in water, and when it’s appropriate to “block” or weight a yarn during finishing (there are some times you might want to do this, though likely not when working with wool yarns you want to knit with). In the final section, she covers how to measure and store your skeins, and how to keep records of your spinning projects.
I re-watched Finishing Up recently as part of my preparation to teach my Sheepspotter’s Society members about finishing. It’s the only really comprehensive resource I’ve found on finishing, so it’s a good thing that it’s really good. I highly recommend it, especially if you spin a wide variety of fibers. Here are the things I particularly liked:
I just really liked Larson herself. She has a lovely presence, she explains things with admirable clarity, and she’s clearly very knowledgeable. If I ever have a chance to take a class from her I will jump at it.
She manages to pack a lot of information into one highly digestible hour, and it’s time well spent.
A couple of caveats or quibbles. These are very small.
In the skeining section, when she’s talking about how to prepare a skein for the wash, she talks about situations in which your yarn doesn’t quite reach all the way around the niddy noddy, and demonstrates why it’s important then to unwind some of the yarn and actually tie the two ends of the skein together. Which, by the way, you should absolutely do. She cautions against using half-hitches to secure the two ends rather than tying a knot, saying that it will compress the fiber. But there’s another, even better reason never to use a half hitch in this way, and to unwind some of your precious handspun from your niddy noddy in order to secure the ends in a good overhand knot before you do anything else with the skein, and that is (and ask me how I know this) that if you put a skein with half hitches into water one or both of them is going to come loose and you are going to be in a world of hurt. I once bought some skeins of Cormo yarn, back when I was dying yarn, and the seller was so concerned that every skein be exactly 100 yards that she used half-hitches, and OMG it was a mess. Every. Single. Skein had to be retied before dyeing. So please promise me that you will tie the ends of your skeins in a knot before you take the skein off your niddy noddy!
At another point in the video she talks about using dish detergent when fulling wool yarns, and I want to caution against this. A lot of dish detergents advertise themselves as containing enzymes, which may not be best friends with the protein in wool. I recommend that you always use a dedicated wool wash on your wool handspun, or, in a pinch, some shampoo.
Three things I learned:
Keeping skeins twisted in the wash: Larson advises keeping skeins very softly twisted when you wash them to keep the skeins tidy, which I’ve never done but which seems like a good idea and one that I will try.
The uses of steam to set twist, smooth out and tame the excess twist in singles, and finish highly textured yarns that might suffer and become disarrayed if immersed in water. I’m not going to go into why steam tames your singles, but I will provide a couple of links to articles that explain the science of why and how this happens this (both from the “twist” issue of Ply).
The importance of hanging yarn up to dry over a wide round rod (like a piece of PVC pipe) and rotating the skein while it dries. She makes a great case for why you don’t want to leave your yarn in the same position for the entire time it’s drying. I was skeptical about this--it seemed fiddly to me--but she convinced me.
To sum up, go get Finishing Up if you’ve ever been confused about the best way to finish one of your handspun yarns!
Last but not least: I mentioned earlier that I’m teaching finishing to the members of the Sheepspotters’ Society. The Society is going to be open to new members this month (January, 2020) for just four days, from January 20-23rd. The price will be $29 USD/month or $309 for the full year. If you’re interested in getting an affordable, comprehensive, and convenient spinning education, The Sheepspotters’ Society is the way to do it. Plus you’ll be joining a community of the most fun spinners on the interwebs. Seriously. I heart them so much.
If you're interested, and you haven’t yet signed up for the Sheepspotters’ Society mailing list, you can do so at sheepspot.com/tss. TSS for The Sheepspotters’ Society. That way you’ll get all the info, and you’ll also get access to my free four-part video workshop called The Spinner’s Journey. It’s the basis of everything I teach in The Sheepspotter’s Society. So go sign up.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Thanks you so much for listening, my friend. I’ll see you in the next episode, in which I’m going to be talking about double-coated sheep and their amazing fleeces. You don’t want to miss it! In the meantime, go spin something!