Stale singles are definitely a common occurrence in my world. I get halfway through something, stop for a day or two, finish it up, wait a day or two, and then ply. Even worse, sometimes I don’t wait the second day or two and then half my single is fresh and the other half is two days on the spindle. Either way, my approach to finding balance in plying has up to this point been haphazard. I’ve had very few balanced skeins, but hadn’t taken the time to fully understand why.
Why did the first spindle-full work out just fine but the second looks terrible and stringy? Why do they *always* twist slightly to the right?
And answers, in order: Because the first one you plied directly after spinning and the second sat on the spindle for a week – and you used the ‘it twists slightly left’ method of balancing both times! Because you’ve underplied slightly, likely because of twist loss during the winding, unwinding, and skeining.
For now I’ve decided that the ‘make a sample by letting a fresh single ply back on itself and compare to that while plying’ method is probably good enough. I’ve been working with fibres and at weights that don’t lend themselves nicely to the ‘make sure the fibres all align straight down the yarn’ method, but I’ll give that a go when/if I have something appropriate.
I’m also looking forward to seeing if this is easier with a wheel than a drop spindle. Theoretically in that case I will be able to count treadles to keep a constant plying twist throughout the skein. I won’t be able to give it a try this weekend (I should try to be polite and avoid boring the friend who’s visiting), but I’d like to soon!
In non-fibre news, it’s been a pretty good day. I tried visiting a chiropractor for the first time to see if he had anything to say about the chronic pain in my hands or the tightness in the top of my neck – an interesting experience, and I think altogether a positive one. I lunched in the park with a close friend who’s currently living out of town while we listened to some beautiful live music. At work I was placed in charge for Q4 of a project I find really interesting. And finally I ended the day with dinner at the same friend’s house with her dad and a number of mutual friends, followed by singing. I could definitely handle more days like this!
P.S. Still having issues getting WordPress to upload my photos. So I’ve been faithfully taking ones that I’ll have to edit back into their respective posts later.