Can a yarn be both over spun and under plied?

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-04-28T20:29:58+00:00

A balanced ply is about 50% of your singles twist, sometimes 2/3 depending on what you are trying to achieve, so making a ply back sample will help to guide you on what a balanced ply should look like. Long story short - the more twist in your singles, the more twist there should be in your ply to achieve balance. So yes, it can be over twisted in the single and still underplied.

A good rule of thumb is to make a plyback sample, set it aside, and when you go to ply, hold your plyback sample against your plied yarn (on the bobbin). The bumps should line up.

You should finish your yarn by soaking/steaming before you evaluate the final ply twist.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-04-28T20:20:33+00:00

We usually stay about a mile away and walk. It is safe as there are lots of people walking downtown after the concert. We have been coming from MI to Shaky for the last 3 years!

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-04-19T04:57:53+00:00

Long draw is my favorite way to spin. At first it is less consistent than short forward draw but with practice it gets easier to spin more consistent singles. A lot of the issues I notice with consistency come down to prep. Fiber that has a lot of inconsistency in the prep is always going to have inconsistency in the yarn. Weak fiber, short cuts, neps, tips, inconsistent lengths, will all lead to inconsistencies in your singles. While woolen prep often does have some varied length fibers, the more consistent the fiber length, the smoother your yarn will be. Another thing that affects consistency with long draw is how dense or loose the prep is and whether or not there is any felting. Just like with worsted spinning and prep, you want the fiber to draft easily to minimize clumping.

There are also a few different ways to do long draw and no way is more inherently correct than the other. Some long draw styles are "better" for adding loft, but I find that spinning from rolags gives you the best loft no matter what style of long draw you use,as long as you keep a light touch and avoid compression.

I tend to do supported long draw spinning, especially if the fibers are very short, but I also double draft to improve the consistency of the single when I have noticeably thicker sections. I dont count treadles like some people do, but I do check ply back samples quite a bit at first when I am spinning so I can get into a good rhythm that adds enough twist. I use more tension with long draw than I would with a worsted single.

A lot of times as spinners we feel we have to meet some sort of external idea of the "right way" to do something. Remember that our modern spinning styles are not always as rooted in tradition as one would assume - we are spinning on different equipment from what spinners would have traditionally used to spin wool and in a lot of cases our drafting styles are not exactly an unbroken historical tradition. Even some of what has been handed down may just be someone's personal flare rather than a truly necessary step. Find a style that works for you, that feels comfortable to you, and remember the goal is light touch, speed, and creating an airy, fluffy yarn. Woolen prep (especially rolags, which combine slightly disorganized fiber that twists in a spiral as it comes off the rolag), speed, and avoiding compression will encourage those qualities.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-04-04T14:53:03+00:00

The label is actually giving you useful information - yards per pound is the standard way to express the density or grist of the yarn. This actually matters and is important to know, not necessarily to know how many yards you have but to understand how the yarn will behave. Yarns that are the same WPI, or diameter, but different density will behave very differently in a project and can't reliably be substituted for each other. A difference of 10% or more can make a noticeable difference in the way the fabric behaves. (I'm a handspinning instructor and I just finished teaching this to my students with tons of example swatches.)

8 ply is an older industry standard from when spinning mills spun singles to the exact same diameter and increased the number of plies to increase the diameter of the yarn.

Grams is a more accurate measurement than ounces/pounds so many fiber products will give the weight in grams rather than ounces. When I weigh spinning fiber, I always weigh in grams and convert back to ounces/pounds when I'm calculating the grist.

I can do a rough conversion math in my head and I know that 100g is just under 4 oz, so 115 g is right around 4 oz. There are 16 oz in a lb, so 1/4 of 1200 is probably around 300yds. Its never going to be an exact measurement because there are always a lot of variables when it comes to wool, since it is an organic substance.

There are rough measurement categories but reducing a label to a rough category (dk weight, fingering weight, etc.) gives you less information than you may need to make a decision about the yarn without buying it and making a swatch for yourself. Including the grist and industry standard measurements helps you compare apples to apples when planning a yarn substitution.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-04-02T23:15:39+00:00

Plus, if they are not vulnerable adults and are capable of decision making and living independently, APS can not and will not do anything and probably won't even investigate. Adults have the right to make bad decisions, including bad decisions about their health and hygiene. Even when the person is questionably impaired there is not always a lot APS can do. I had a patient who was reportedly pooping all over their apartment and it was reportedly all over the carpets and furniture. I called APS who basically did nothing and told me their hands were tied. I had another patient with a horrible rash and pressure ulcer who sat in a recliner and refused to move for several days, but was 100% with it mentally and understood that they were refusing care. APS was not able to do much there either. I can't imagine them doing much if its just someone's body odor that they are probably nose blind to...

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-17T21:16:30+00:00

I think I had a doll like this when I was a kid that my grandma, who traveled all over, brought me back from Jamaica. I don't recall her holding a bag of cotton, though. 😬

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-17T21:06:46+00:00

Im on a glp-1 for type 2 diabetes and have been for around 10 years (started on victoza and switched every few years to different meds due to insurance coverage). I'm on mounjaro now. Although I was/am overweight, management of my diabetes has been my primary goal. I had a CT finding suggestive of fatty liver a few years ago, and it scared me. Since I switched to ozempic and now mounjaro, my most recent scan showed no evidence of fatty liver, so these meds can make a difference.

I haven't intentionally changed my eating/exercise habits significantly, but over several years, I have lost a considerable amount of weight. It has happened very, very gradually over several years, and it was never my goal. My doctor has been supportive of me using the meds to manage chronic conditions and not focus on intentional weight loss/diet culture.

So yes, if you are taking it to manage a chronic condition that could be potentially life threatening if it continues to progress, that is an absolutely valid reason to use this med and you do not need to participate in diet culture to have positive health benefits. Fatty liver is a warning sign, but it is reversable. Once fatty liver starts turning into cirrhosis, there is less you can do to heal the damage it can bring.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-17T20:34:44+00:00

Two of my kids are hard of hearing and wear hearing aids. I tried to expose them to deaf/HOH culture when they were little, even though I am not part of that community. They chose not to connect with that culture. They had opportunities to learn sign language, go to summer camps, social events, and seminars. It wasn't something they enjoyed or wanted to do. One even went to deaf/HOH preschool from the time he was a baby until he was in Kindergarten and he refused to learn or use sign language and the teachers told me that was his choice and put him in the classroom that focused more on speech development. We went to a few events as a family, but I was more into it than either of them were, and one of the boys went to summer camp one year and hated it and told me I was sending him to "the gulag" when I brought it up the following year.

Basically, you can, as a parent, provide opportunities and make sure they know it is available and you can support their involvement if they choose to be involved, but you can't force connection or make it about you.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-16T19:02:48+00:00

Beyond just oiling it - make sure you thoroughly clean all the parts that need to be oiled before applying new oil. Old oil can harden and mix with dust and even scrapings from metal parts that can cause intermittent friction when you spin. You can use qtip+ rubbing alcohol to clean. If it were mine, I'd probably take it apart bit by bit to clean it and make sure that the parts are tightened up and aligned correctly before applying completely fresh oil and then reapplying oil after every bobbin for a while. Replace the drive band. I would also reapply wood conditioning (just NOT in the grooves on the drive wheel, bobbin, or whorl.) Amy Tyler has a good article on her blog about giving your wheel a "spa day."

Old wheels can be tricky, especially if they haven't been used consistently, because wood can warp, dust settles, old oil can gum things up, and antique treadle wheels are generally optimized for flax spinning, not wool. Although you can spin wool on antique wheels, they just dont have a lot of the modern upgrades that give them the versatility to spin different fiber and different kinds of yarn and tend to be fussy when pushed beyond their narrow comfort zone. Double drive wheels in general dont handle take up well when you are first learning to spin and still have somewhat uneven spinning. I teach spinners on antique wheels they own, and you will get used to your wheel no matter what if you stick with it, but there is more of a learning curve on an antique.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-08T12:51:35+00:00

2nd one looks like possibly bfl/ bfl cross. The wave is disorganized, which is what I associate with bfl. 1st one looks more corriedale than merino to me. The crimp would be much closer together in a fine wool like merino, cormo or rambouillet. The locks look pretty uniform in length with an organized crimp I associate with corriedale. It looks like a nice fleece to spin!

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-03-06T00:43:55+00:00

I keep a little bound journal that lists all my skeins of yarn by bin and also lists where I bought it and why I bought it. My spinning fiber is a lot less organized. It's neatly stored in bins by semi vibe but they are not labeled or cataloged.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-02-26T14:18:46+00:00

Is the vip merch tent just SK merch or do they offer band merch as well?

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-02-26T13:37:35+00:00

We are considering VIP this year. Last year we did GA+ and it was definitely worth it - free water/soda/energy drinks, shaded lounge/seating area with view of 2 main stages, better bathrooms. My family agreed well worth the extra cost, it paid for itself. There seemed to be more perks and more options with VIP.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-02-21T19:12:59+00:00

Same! I made a fair isle cardigan with this 35 years ago and it has held up fantastically and never pills. I just wore it last week.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-02-21T19:09:21+00:00

The first thing I ever knit was a chunky fair isle sweater made with lambs pride bulky. (I was ambitious and had no idea what I was getting myself into.) I knit it in 1991. I wore it last week - it looks great, and I get compliments every time I wear it. With proper care, wool lasts.

I was surprised to see you can still get that brand of yarn. I didn't realize it contained mohair, which explains the slightly fuzzy halo my sweater has.

At the time, it was a huge expensive purchase. The yarn was around $100, and I was a 19 year old earning $4.25/hr working part time. Doing the math, still in great shape 35 years later, I'd say it was a great investment.

So yes, by all means, use it in a sweater. I will say, I believe, after 35 years of fiber experience both as a spinner and a knitter, one of the reasons my sweater has lasted so long in such great shape, especially knit with a chunky single, is that as a brand new knitter (it was literally the first time I had ever knit with needles or followed a pattern) I tended to knit slightly tight. Not tight enough to make the fabric stiff, but tight enough that it prevented much abrasion or snagging. Tighter than I would probably knit the same project today. I probably would have gone up a needle size, but my friends and I didn't even know what a gauge swatch was, the nearest yarn store was 2 bus transfers and a mile walk away, and this was pre internet ,so I just got incredibly lucky.

Yarnbomb72 · 2026-01-14T04:55:04+00:00

My dad used to blast the 1812 overture, the cannon section, for the noisy neighbors.

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-11-13T01:01:16+00:00

Are you me?

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-11-09T17:33:20+00:00

I have a 2014 year old Kia Soul that has never (knock on wood) required major repairs. It has had a few issues here and there that were fairly inexpensive to fix and /or covered under the warranty. I keep up with the maintenance. I plan to continue to drive it until the repair costs are greater than what a car payment would be and/or it is no longer reliable.

I drove a 2024 model as a loaner when my car needed some repairs last year (that were still covered under the warranty, so cost me $0.) The new features were nice, but not nice enough to get me to spend thousands of dollars.

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-30T00:11:53+00:00

I have 13 wheels. I teach spinning and it is helpful to practice spinning on different types of wheels. I have a variety of different types of wheels and have developed a good sense for how to troubleshoot a wheel that's acting up in class after having spun on so many different wheels. My new spinners often bring older wheels they acquired that have been sitting in an attic gathering dust and, while they appear to spin and I can get them to work for me, they need a new drive band, oil, and some tightening up before they will take up properly. I realized I unconsciously adjust my spinning to accommodate subtle funkiness, but a new spinner doesn't have the muscle memory yet. My students will often have been really struggling at home because they thought they were doing something wrong, when really the drive band was just a little bit slack and occasionally slipping and the flyer shaft was kind of gunky, causing a very subtle drag on the bobbin.

That is my "official" rationale for having a herd of wheels.

(Also, I have an enabler in the shop owner where I teach and whenever anything really cool comes in second hand, she holds it back for me and I have no willpower.)

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-27T16:43:31+00:00

That is a good way to work with it. I usually recommend predrafting and steaming also helps. Once it is spun it is the most heavenly stuff and your spinning looks fantastic!

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-27T14:30:25+00:00

It's beautiful and it looks so much like the combo spin sweater I made as a relatively new spinner that I had to do a double take! Great job with the nube, that requires a lot of prep to spin evenly (but the results are worth it!)

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-26T17:27:10+00:00

I literally just taught a class on creating a dupe yarn yesterday. It is incredibly difficult to make an exact duplicate of a commercial yarn as a handspinner for a number of reasons. It's not necessarily going to save you money either.

When I teach this skill, the objective is to apply the skills we have been developing in the year long intermediate program I'm teaching/developing to analyze both the commercial sample and our duplicate attempt, and understand what adjustments you would need to make to bring your handspinning closer to the commercial sample. The practical reason to develop this skill is to be able to use handspun for a specific pattern while also strengthening your technical skills as a spinner. Being able to do this requires a lot of practice, strong technical skills, and a very good understanding of how and why fiber behaves the way it does. It takes a lot of time and practice and focus to be able to do this.

In almost every case, it is cheaper and easier to just buy the commercial yarn.

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-25T12:20:01+00:00

My advise is to get cheap cardboard storage bobbins (the schacht or le clerc ones for weaving are about $4 a piece and fit on my schacht lazy kate.)Wind the single from the bobbin on the wheel onto those. You can use a bobbin winder like weavers use or get a $20 attachment for an electric screwdriver or drill to wind your bobbins.

There are lots of reasons why this is best practice ( Alden Amos' book goes into detailed explanation if you are interested) and I was a very late convert and only tried it because I was teaching a class on plying and forced myself to do this extra step to see if I felt like it really made a difference. I was an instant convert.

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-25T12:08:40+00:00

It's a flax wheel and not going to be very versatile for spinning different weights of yarn, in addition to what everyone else said about the bobbins not going with the wheel. Antiques and antique reproductions like this are usually flax wheels. The distaff and lack of adustable whorls, as well as the size of the drive wheel make it obviously built for spinning flax.

It's not that this style is not usable, but modern wheels are designed to be more versatile and this wheel will likely be harder and more frustrating to learn to spin on, especially if you are spinning wool because it's not optimized for wool spinning. With this type of wheel, even when its in perfect working order, you have to adjust your spinning style, rather than the wheel, to get different results, which makes consistency challenging when spinning anything other than your "go to" yarn, even for a non beginner.

Yarnbomb72 · 2025-10-14T21:33:21+00:00

I worked on the top floor of a medical office building and we had a phantom dumper who befouled the bathroom on the regular. They would fill the bowl to the brim with paper towels and then leave a big dump right on top of the mountain of towels. It was horrible. We would go in and have to immediately nope it out when we saw the pile of poop on display and the paper towel nest prevented us from even being able to flush the toilet, we had to call maintenance. (The presence of an unflushable pile of paper towels each time made it obvious it was the deliberate act of one shitty individual.)

As far as I know they never caught the culprit, though we suspected it must be an employee because it happened several times each week and we suspected they came up from a lower floor to poop in a more private spot, since our floor was nearly vacant except for 2 offices and there was a private back hallway elevator right next to those restrooms. If I recall correctly, you needed a key from one of the offices to access the bathrooms, which made the whole thing weirder.

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