When my leg acted up the other night and I couldn’t sleep, I wound up checking out YouTube videos on Navajo/chain plying, both wheel and spindle. There seem to be more videos for the wheel version, but there are some good ones on spindle plying. Enough that I could figure it out. On the grounds that if you don’t use a new skill right away you forget, I decided to chain ply the Fading Into Neutral Polwarth roving I’ve been spinning that week instead of making it a 2ply as originally planned. I considered trying the “ply on the fly” technique too, but decided that would break the rhythm you get into when spinning and plying separately.
All in all, I think I prefer regular 2 or 3ply, although I can see how chain plying would be useful depending on the type of colorway. This is the first yarn I’ve done that will require whacking as part of the finishing process. Two skeins and a bit gave me a total of about 318 yards at 18 wpi. Here’s the completed skeins and a closeup:
Right now I’m spinning up a Merino/Bamboo/Tussah Silk blend in white that I got months ago from Crown Mountain Farms. It is really slippery and easy to draft, almost too easy. It will be a 2ply that I will use to make Mom a shawl, and one for myself if there’s enough left over (I have a pound to spin and am hoping to get at least 800 yds of 2ply). My singles are at approx 40wpi+/- which seems to be just about my default spinning weight. Here’s my first plying ball that I’ll start plying tonight:
Knitting
On the knitting front, well I haven’t been knitting much of anything, except maybe the Risk socks. I'm about five inches down the foot of the first sock.
I’ll be taking it to bowling tomorrow so I should get another inch done. This week I'll have to set aside an hour or so during the day to knit and save the spinning for the evenings at the nursing home with Mom. That way maybe I'll get the majority of the sock knitting UFOs done by the end of August. Well, that's the plan....
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