As singles, highly twisted yarn stores a lot of energy, which will cause a skein of singles to twist. To balance the yarn, it must be plyed with an equal amount of counter twist. So to ply, two singles are spun together in the opposite direction. If correctly done, the newly spun, washed and dried skein won't twist. It will hang straight, like in the photo on the left. If the yarn isn't balanced, the skein will twist to one side or the other.
With a faster speed, the trick is to draft out the fibers to match the speed of the wheel. This is what I need to practice on because I ended up with small over-twisted bits that look like little corkscrews in the finished yarn.
I'm guessing somewhere, in somebody's book, this is a deliberate design feature, but I don't recall running across it. I do like the look of them, but I wonder how it will work up. Unbalanced yarn tends to skew knitting, for example.
Because one thing leads to another, I'm going to finish the rest of the roving the same way. That will give me enough to play with and see what happens.
Actually, I'm thinking it would be pretty neat if all the corkscrew nubs were different colors. Hmm. Another experiment is brewing in my brain incubator.
2 comments:
Leigh, all of this is completely fascinating to me as I know nothing about. Tension in yarn - who knew?
My youngest daughter, Nighean Dhonn, has a developed a great interest in the fiber arts (primarily knitting), and is trying to link it to her degree in Archaeology. I sent your site along to her as a reference.
TB, the fiber arts are as old as civilization itself, and make for a fascinating historical study. My take is that it was more a sophisticated craft than many believe. Many, many archaeological digs find and catalog textiles along with the tools to make them. Lots of reenactors and SCA members are into this stuff, so that might be more resources for her.
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