Spiral plying with thread
A recent survey on a Face Book groups asked "what kind of spinner are you?" I wish I could say I'm crafty, artsy, inspired; none of those are true. The opposite is true. I am a planner, a disciplined, goal orientated spinner. On the side of a craftsman more than an artist. From the start I understood and appreciated the technical side of the craft, and I wanted my yarn to have commercial like consistency. This was the prominent drive of the last 3 years of my spinning journey.
Reaching the point where I can only spin and dye so much smooth and single color yarn for so long, until I started to wonder what's out there. In the quest for knowledge, I ran into the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs. I thumbed through the book like I was looking through the Neiman Marcus catalog. So many of the yarns were beyond my skill or imagination to figure a use for them. It was a big help to see knitted swatches for the yarns, but I still couldn't figure what I would do with a larger items.
I'm a little slow to new things, afraid to mess up. Let me tell you, if you are like me, give it up. It's ok to explore. I had an epic fail with beehives, and I found out I love spiral yarns. Not only do I love creating them, but I love knitting with them. They provide just enough texture to wake up my smooth, worsted singles. My first spirals were with commercial lace weight cashmere, a solid fiber single with a contrasting ply. The spiral is also my preferred way to add beads to my yarn: the tiny seed beads are carried along the thread ply as either a 2 ply or a 3 ply.
I'm not going to go into details on how I spiral ply, there are a ton of tutorials already. Instead I want to share my new favorite thread I'm using to ply.
For the latest Angora spin, I wanted a lightweight ply to complement the texture of Angora. My first idea was silk thread, but I can't get that locally and was unsure about the colors and weight from online suppliers. i found myself in embroidery aisle at Joann's and instead of silk thread, I came face to face with the gorgeous Sulky Blendables.
Where has this been all my life? The Blendables come in many different variegated spools, the perfect thing to liven up my single color skeins. For the Angora I used the thinner 30ct thread, though there is a heavier 12 ct as well.
And the Green Tunis.
I am quite impressed with the outcome of the ply. I'm going to use a lot of Blendables yarn for my spiral plies. Sulky has a whole line of wonderful threads, I'm sure you'll find one you are looking for.
Sulky Blendables
Reaching the point where I can only spin and dye so much smooth and single color yarn for so long, until I started to wonder what's out there. In the quest for knowledge, I ran into the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs. I thumbed through the book like I was looking through the Neiman Marcus catalog. So many of the yarns were beyond my skill or imagination to figure a use for them. It was a big help to see knitted swatches for the yarns, but I still couldn't figure what I would do with a larger items.
I'm a little slow to new things, afraid to mess up. Let me tell you, if you are like me, give it up. It's ok to explore. I had an epic fail with beehives, and I found out I love spiral yarns. Not only do I love creating them, but I love knitting with them. They provide just enough texture to wake up my smooth, worsted singles. My first spirals were with commercial lace weight cashmere, a solid fiber single with a contrasting ply. The spiral is also my preferred way to add beads to my yarn: the tiny seed beads are carried along the thread ply as either a 2 ply or a 3 ply.
I'm not going to go into details on how I spiral ply, there are a ton of tutorials already. Instead I want to share my new favorite thread I'm using to ply.
For the latest Angora spin, I wanted a lightweight ply to complement the texture of Angora. My first idea was silk thread, but I can't get that locally and was unsure about the colors and weight from online suppliers. i found myself in embroidery aisle at Joann's and instead of silk thread, I came face to face with the gorgeous Sulky Blendables.
Where has this been all my life? The Blendables come in many different variegated spools, the perfect thing to liven up my single color skeins. For the Angora I used the thinner 30ct thread, though there is a heavier 12 ct as well.
And the Green Tunis.
I am quite impressed with the outcome of the ply. I'm going to use a lot of Blendables yarn for my spiral plies. Sulky has a whole line of wonderful threads, I'm sure you'll find one you are looking for.
Sulky Blendables
Comments
Post a Comment