Spindling On

As I was gasping for air doing intervals on the elliptical the other night, I decided I would post about an aspect of my spindle spinning.

There are a couple of options available to spindle-spinners when they are plying. Some wind the single into a centre-pull ball and ply using both ends. Some use the Andean plying bracelet. (I first tried it with some high-twist silk, and ended up with a disaster, and I've been hesitant to give it another try.)  Some Navajo-ply a spindle-full into a 3-ply yarn. The problem with these approaches is that you end up with a short-ish length of plied yarn, because there is a limited amount of single that you can spin and wind onto the spindle, and when you ply that length of single against itself, you lose length.  So if you're going to knit this up, you will have many ends to deal with.

The other problem is that unless you have a control sample to check against, your singles can shift over a period of time, getting thinner or thicker; more or less twist. So your yarn within a batch could vary from spindleful to spindleful.  Sometimes it will vary a lot.

I read somewhere that Priscilla Gibson-Roberts could ply by holding 2 spindles in one hand and ply directly off them. I thought this was a great idea, but two spindles in one hand was bulky and clunky. Then I vaguely remembered something I read -- I think in Marilyn Kluger's "The Joy of Spinning" -- about how American spinners using great wheels would wrap a corn-husk around the spindle and wind the copp onto that. They could ply off those copps, and wouldn't have to put time into winding the single off the spindle before starting a new copp.  It also allowed them to have a longer length of plied yarn. I think this was called using a "quill", and that's what I'll call them in this post. I use quills a lot now when spindle-spinning. Here's how I do it.

First I assemble the materials. I take a piece of standard letter-size paper (8.5 x 11 inches) and divide it into 8ths. (In this case I'm using pink paper, but I usually use white.) For each copp I have an elastic band, and some tape. I tear off a piece of tape about 3 inches long, and keep it handy to where I'm working.

I position a piece of the paper on top of a thick book, and put the spindle on it so that the whorl hangs over the book's edge. (In this case it's Mark Bittman's excellent "How to Cook Everything". The Garlicky Beef Daube on page 436 is very good.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I roll the spindle, wrapping the paper around the shaft of the spindle so that it's as snug as I can get it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then secure with the tape. You did tear off the piece of tape and have it ready to go, right? Trying to hold the spindle so the quill doesn't shift around and tear off the tape is not always easy.

 

 

 

 

 

I wrap the elastic band around the bottom of the quill. It holds the quill in place, and forms a dam so the singles don't slip off the quill. Then I attach the leader with a lark's head knot. There: ready to spin.

 

 

 

 

So I spin and wind onto the quill. ***When I'm satisfied with how much has been wound on, I pull the quill off the spindle and toss it into a bowl. I put another quill on the spindle, and spin and wind on.***   Repeat from *** to ***, until you have run out of fibre, or you want to start plying. I like to spin all my singles before I ply.

When I ply with a spindle, I hold 2 of the copps in my left hand, and go. I use a heavier, larger spindle than I use for spinning the singles, so I can get more plied yarn on it. When wheel-plying, I put the copps in separate jars, and let them wind off as I go. I suppose I should be more concerned about loss of twist when doing this, and put the coops on a lazy kate of some kind so the singles will reel off, instead of winding off.

When I'm spinning the singles, I don't fill the copps to the same size. Some copps will have more yardage on them than others. That's okay because the joins won't match up when plying. (Not that they do anyway.) When I have 1 copp remaining in the bowl, I'll wind it into a centre-pull ball and use both ends for plying. (That will make sense when you do it.)

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a picture of some yarn I spun using this method. The fiber is an 85 /15 merino/silk top from Ashland Bay (I think), available from many vendors. I spun the singles on a "Starlight Comet" made by Tracey Eichheim, and plied it on my Lendrum. (Looking at the yarn now, I see it's quite uneven...maybe I better stop writing about my spinning.)

Note: K. is running her Advent blog now. Always fun.
2nd note: I did a bit of editing to clean out some of the empty lines form my original post. (16 December 2005)

Comments

[Diane]

Ted, thanks for the plying info. It came just when I was ready to pay attention. Perfect timing.

[JoVE]

Hmmmm. I like the Andean bracelet but can see what you mean about length and evening out things. Will have to try this.

[Lee Ann]

I'm a big fan of the Andean bracelet, despite my rude beginnings with it...I do have to be hypercareful when I'm plying laceweight, though, and I have yet to try plying laceweight on the wheel with this method. I've done fingering weight on the wheel using an Andean bracelet, though (the brown llama whose colour my husband decided he did not like. Geesh.)

And if that blue yarn is uneven, I need better glasses, because I can't see the unevenness. All I see is beautiful yarn that reallllly makes me covet merino/silk ;-)

[Mar]

I'm going to drag out my Hatchtown spindle and give it another whorl.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Thanks for giving me the impetus to try spindling again. That blue yarn is perfect to my eyes.

[Kim]

Paper quills for drop spindles! What a BRILLIANT idea!!!! Thanks for sharing it - now I will never have to loose circulation in my middle finger again forming that andean plying bracelet.

[Catherine]

Thanks for a clear tutorial; I might even have to splurge on one of those spindles ;)

Another way of getting a quick quill (not to be said three times rapidly) is to use a clean thickshake straw (like McDonald's provide) and split it lengthwise, then wrap tightly around the shaft, using a rubber band if needed in the same way you do. The reason I split it is so it can either overlap for a narrow shaft or widen for a thicker one.

Thanks again,

[Mama Lu]

Thank you for this. I've read about quills, but actually seeing the process pushed me into trying it for myself. I--rather cleverly, I thought--used a large Post-it note, and although I taped it for insurance, it didn't require three hands (well, it didn't after I took my first attempt off the spindle and re-wrapped it so the adhesive was on the outside edge facing in).

I'm about to spin some dyed silk and some very fine kid mohair to ply together for Brenda Dayne's Mrs. Beeton. Since both need a lot of twist, I wanted to use a small fast spindle--of which I have only one. This should solve that problem, and if I can tension the quills, the singles might be less likely to tie themselves into spiteful little knots as I'm plying.

[Tonia]

The paper quill is pretty brilliant! I apologize for being so late to comment and for the newbie-nature of this question, but: when you come to the end of one single while plying but still have more to go on the other one, how do you join a new single to the short one?