Balanced!

Woo, hoo, perfectly balanced! And I know how I did it too, so there is hope for achieving balance again with the next skein.



For the readers who don't know why I'm doing the Goody, Goody Dance about this I'll explain. For the experienced spinners already in the know....you can skip the rest of this post. ;-)

When hand spinning yarn, you aim for a balanced skein. This means the twist in the "singles" matches the twist in the plying (two or more singles twisted together to form yarn) and the end result is a skein that hangs without twisting around itself......like the skein in the picture. It can be hard to achieve because the slightest variation either way (too much spin in the single or in the plying) causes imbalance.

Yesterday I carefully checked the twist in the plying frequently while I was doing it. It seemed perfect, but when I took it off the wheel and made a skein it was very UNDER twisted in the ply....making the finished skein twist "S". It was pretty obvious to me that winding it off the wheel and onto the niddy noddy was untwisting it.

Today, while making a new skein, I compensated for that untwisting effect by slightly overspinning during the plying. So during the few "tests" I did while spinning, the 'test-loop' twisted back on itself slightly "Z". When I made the skein it hung in absolute perfection.

I know that I'm blathering on here, preaching the obvious to the experienced spinners and not explaining enough of the lingo to the non-spinners. Maybe the NEW spinners can at least relate?

Well off to spin a bit in celebration. I've set a goal for myself of spinning and plying one skein per day. My "goal" is also my limit as I don't want to overdo the spinning and neglect all my other hobbies. Speaking of which......I'll have some knitterly pictures soon. I promise.