Yarn Everywhere!

Remember how I was going to make a cabled yarn from my green merino top? (If not, just click on the Spinning category tag.) Well, that didn’t happen. For those unfamiliar with spinning or cabled yarns, a short explanation: Regular plied yarn is made up of two or more singles that are twisted together in the direction opposite the one they were spun in. This plying twist balances the twist in the singles, which is why plied yarn doesn’t kink up on itself like singles do (and like any string you introduce a lot of twist into will). In a cabled yarn, the “plies” are actually two (or more, I suppose) singles plied together. In traditional cabled yarns these singles are “overplied” - lots of extra twist is added during plying so that, to balance the yarn, the strands can be plied back together in the direction of the twist in the original singles. (Many mill-spun yarns are constructed in a similar way, but they underply the singles instead of overplying them, and then twist these strands together again in the same direction.)

It’s simple when you think about twist quantitatively! To have a balanced yarn, you want the amount of twist in an individual fiber to be 0. (The fibers should lie parallel to the finished yarn.) When you spin a singles, you add (for instance) 10 units of twist to it. Then, when you overply those two singles together, you add 17 units of twist in the other direction (total twist = -7). To get a balanced cabled yarn, just add 7 units of twist in the first direction! Of course, not all yarns have to be balanced, but that’s another story.

(Disclaimer: I am not nearly this scientific about my spinning. I do not measure twist angle, count twists per inch, any of that.)

I didn’t do quite enough research before starting, and spun the singles quite a bit tighter then I should have. Consequently, I would have had to put in a ridiculous amount of twist into the first plying in order to get the yarn I wanted. I’ll try again later.

Instead of a cabled yarn, I ended up with light finger weight 2-ply. One skein (on the left) is just the second pair of singles plied together, and the other had plying twist taken out of it (since it started out as half a cabled yarn). I like the skein on the left very much, but the one on the right… it’s a little heavier, and I didn’t unply it exactly the right amount, and it’s generally a messier yarn. I doubt I’ll use it. I think I’ll probably make a lovely airy lacy scarf with the other. That skein is 365m and 50g, and the heavier one is 292 m and 68g.

IfI never spin a gram of Ashland Bay Multicolor Merino Top again for the rest of my life, I will be a very happy girl. I got 8oz of this fiber back when I bought my first spindle, and spent a lot of last summer and some of the fall spinning it. Then, when I bought my wheel, I got at least another 8oz of it in a different color (I wasn’t aware at the time that they were the exact. same. fiber.). I have now spun up every bit of both colors into relatively fine yarn. It took a long time. I’m done. I’ve moved on. I think I want to spend a while not spinning merino, I don’t love the powdery feeling of it. Of course, I’m currently spinning the merino/mohair roving I got from Beaverslide… but that’s very different, since it’s lightly processed roving (chunky!) instead of ultraprocessed top. It’s about as different as you can get from the Ashland Bay stuff while still being mostly the same fiber.

There has also been knitting progress! I finished the back of the Tweedy Aran Cardigan.

Still in love with all the texture. Delicious.