One of my favorites aspects of the internet is the ability to learn something new all the time. I’ve been spinning since 1999 when I got my first wheel. Several more followed and then came the spindles. That’s a long while that I’ve been spinning, and yet, there is always something new to learn.
I’ve been relatively active in the Ravelry Forums and found a technique I hadn’t learned. Plying on the fly on a spindle. Wow! It’s n-plying on a spindle, which in itself is not novel, but doing it as you go IS. Basically, you spin a length of singles, and then chain ply it to wind yarn onto the spin. There’s a video here, which is what I used.
That’s three ply BFL on my new Red Oak Bosworth Midi weighing .67 oz. I like this technique. I’ve never been a huge fan of plying and this method gets it out of the way in small bites 🙂 It also allows you to ply a truly balanced yarn with draping the plied yarn to see how it springs. No discounting what you see because one ply has been hanging around for hours/days/weeks/months/years waiting for its cohorts to be ready to ply. Not to mention it allows me to 3 ply with my short attention span and inability to spin three of anything before I see something shiny.
Craft on!
