I Plied My First Yarn!!

I learned how to Ply my spinning last night. Over this last spring and summer, I have been learning to use a drop spindle. Vicki from Simple Knits showed me. It is quite addictive, but I had set my spinning aside to do the Monkey Swap. At the Fiber Frolic on Saturday, I asked Liz Mathews how to ply using a drop spindle. She told me to use a ball winder to wind the spun wool. Then ply the ball together from the outside string and the inside string. So I tried that on Sunday. Big disaster! I kept getting tangled up since the outside string would come out longer than the inside. My first thought was that if it was this difficult to ply with a spindle, I would either not ply or try to work out a deal with one of the spinners who has a wheel. But first I did a search on the web and found this Website http://www.handspinning.com/lollipops/spininst.htm by Carol Cassidy-Fayer. It was very interesting. I had looked at this one before when I was first learning to spin. Anyway, I followed her suggestion about putting 2 balls of spun yarn in coffee cups and threading the end through the handle and up to the spindle. I had to have Vicki help me finesse my technique a bit, but it worked out great. In this photo, you can just barely see the 2 coffee mugs in the upper left corner.

And here is some of my finished product. I have a 2 more balls to spin. If my calculations are right, I have 84 yards in the first hank. Definitely not enough for a pair of socks, but I might get a anorexic scarf out of it.

Can't wait to get the rest of it done. Then I have to set the twist. I will post finished photos when I get them, I was just so excited I had to post these now. Oh by the way, this was 100% Targhee dyed by Liz Mathews, The Chocolate Princess.