Mixing Things up for a Sweater
words and photos by: Johanna Carter
I always admire those who are able to spin mountains of yarn for a big project, ready to knit a wonderful sweater or cardigan. It is a satisfying feeling when you finish all that work, especially if you started with washing and combing the wool or even raising your own sheep.
Mixing spinning and knitting
The typical way to work through a larger project is to spin all the singles first and ply them in a particular order so you get the yarn even throughout the whole project. I don’t have so many bobbins, but my bigger problem is that I am quite impatient and want to get on with knitting once I have an idea. And normally, my brain is full of ideas for fibre work and the limit is the time, as I am a musician and teacher. I can’t sit at the spinning wheel for a long time if I’m not on holiday, so during the school year I mostly knit, and during the holidays I can dye, spin, use my drum carder, and do lots of fibre work. The only time I was able to produce bigger quantities of yarn before I knitted them up was during the Tour de Fleece in the two years during the pandemic, when we did not go on holiday at the beginning of July.
A highly photogenic collection of naturally dyed fibres.
I like to finish knitting one big project like a sweater or cardigan before I start the next one, or at least until I can’t carry it in my bag easily anymore, so I have an excuse to begin the next one. Sometimes it is good to have a second project on the go – I call it mindless knitting, where I don’t have to look very much – which I can keep my hands busy during Zoom or other meetings, which helps me listen.
Mixing colours and fibres
Usually I dye my yarn with plants which I collect in the woods or get from garden flowers. I also use cochineal and indigo, which I buy, to get lots of different colours. I really love the greens and blues I get from dyeing with indigo. I have lots of dyed wool, and all those colours give me inspiration for further projects.
Beautiful greens and blues dyed by the author using indigo and other natural dyes.
Blending the wool on the drum carder I can get even more shades. I like to blend with fibres like silk, alpaca, or plant fibres, and I love sari silk, to get those little bits of colour in my yarn.
Fibres of different types and colours are blended on a drum carder for elegant results.
When I have an idea for the next sweater, I start carding, and then I can begin to spin. Once I have spun enough yarn – say, for one day – I cast on and start knitting, usually top down, so I don’t have to decide too much in advance about length and width.
An idea for the author’s next sweater in the gathering stages.
When I spin on my wheel, I have to sit at home, but while spinning I can read a book or talk to others during online meetings. I also like to spin on my spindles, and that works on a walk, or a museum visit. I take them on holiday as they don’t need much space, and when I spin for a lace shawl, I don’t even need much wool either. At home there are spindles all over the place; I can spin when I am waiting for the kettle to boil, when the computer is slow, when I am cooking. Like that I can make good use of a short time and the yarn still grows.
Knitting as soon as the yarn is spun helps the author complete sweater projects in a timely manner.
I can take my knitting almost everywhere, which is why I don’t want to wait to get started until I have spun all the yarn for a whole sweater. I knit at home, on the bus or train. The only thing I have to make sure of is to be one step ahead with the yarn.
I love to knit Fair Isle sweaters. My favourite method is to use only one bobbin, which I don’t even fill, because I need smaller quantities of lots of colours. Then I wind a ply ball and ply it on itself. For that I put my thumb through the ball, so I can tension the two singles with my fingers and they don’t get tangled, as long as my thumb (or a cardboard roll or a pencil) stays in the middle. I don’t have any leftovers from plying, and it is quick when I suddenly need more yarn.
Several charming sweaters dyed, spun, and knit by the author.
I have never had problems with the yarn not being consistent enough throughout a project. I just know what yarn I want and my fingers seem to remember what to do. I am sure it is good advice to have a little card tied to the spinning wheel with a bit of the singles you are aiming for, so you can check and make sure you are spinning a consistent yarn.
Mixing breeds
There are so many different breeds, but some of my favourites are Shetland, BFL, and Jämtland – a Swedish breed. After dyeing them, I often forget what I have used, so when I do a new project it often turns out that I have used different breeds and fibres just to get the right colour. For the Fair Isle knitting I want to juggle lots of colours, which is more important to me than making a sweater out of only one breed.
Recently I made a pullover for my husband using about 12 different breeds and colours, even mixing short and long draw. For me it was a breed experiment and a way to use up lots of smaller quantities of wool I had in my stash. For that sweater I used combed top without blending.
Mixing in knitting during the spinning process is a wonderful way for a spinner to avoid being overwhelmed during a sweater project.
My feeling is that some people don’t dare to start spinning for a bigger project because they get overwhelmed by the quantity they have to spin and then all the knitting there is to do, especially when you want to spin the yarn entirely on spindles. Mixing the spinning and knitting for the same project is more interesting; you get more variety and more freedom to choose what you want to do next as long as you don’t run out of yarn. It breaks the project down into smaller, less daunting parts. The only thing you might want to plan is to have enough fibre at the start, but even that is not necessary, there is always a sheep growing more wool.
Ask Jacey: Should I spin and ply with the same whorl?
Hello, I would like to know if plying of yarn should be done with the same whorl that spinning was done. Do you recommend to ply at the same tension and twist, or do you recommend to add more twist or tension when plying? Thank you! ~ Tatiana
Hi Tatiana,
What a great question!
The answer is that you can but you don’t need to. In the past, wheels had more limited ratios than we enjoy today. If spinners wanted more ply twist than the twist they put into their singles, they’d just hold the yarn out of the orifice for a bit longer. If they wanted less ply twist, they’d move their feet slower and/or their drafting hands faster. However, with the huge array of whorl/pulley sizes and the addition of e-spinners on the market, most spinners don’t do this anymore – I know I don’t!
First let’s talk about worsted yarns (yarns you spin with no twist between your hands). A worsted single is really stable (it’s why we can have worsted singles yarns that never get plied). We don’t need the singles to have lots of singles twist. In fact, I like to spin my singles with a lower amount of singles twist and then give them extra ply-twist (taking it past the “balance” point). I find this gives me a soft yarn (because of the lower amount of singles twist) that still holds up well to wear and abrasion (because of the higher amount of ply twist). To that end, the whorl I ply on is usually smaller than the whorl I spun on. If my wheel was already on my smallest groove, I’ll move my feet faster or hold my plied yarn out from the orifice just a bit before I let it feed in.
The same is (kind of) true when it comes to woolen yarns (yarns you spin with twist between your hands) except that a woolen singles isn’t as stable and really needs to be plied to be a useful yarn. Woolen singles are generally softly spun, and they’re delicate in their unplied state. When I ply them, I usually put quite a bit more twist in the ply so once again I move my band to a smaller pulley (or turn up my e-spinner speed).
When it comes to tension/uptake when plying, I might increase my wheel’s uptake just a tiny bit but only because now it has to work harder since it’s pulling in twice the heft it pulled in before (the two singles plied opposed to just one single). But sometimes I don’t even do that. I generally adjust my tension based on the situation at hand and not any rules about what I’m doing at the time. I always want my wheel to take the yarn I offer it but never to pull against me. If it’s pulling and I can feel it pulling, I turn the tension down. If my yarn is lagging or sagging before it finally goes into the orifice, I’ll turn the tension up. I don’t like using my wheel’s tension to control twist amount or diameter (doing this usually leads me to very inconsistent yarn). Most often I want my tension to feel the same to me, as in, I don’t feel it either way.
In short, you can do whatever you like – there aren’t hard and fast rules in spinning. If you’re getting the yarn you like, you’re doing okay! However, if you’re not getting yarn that makes you happy, experiment with changing the amounts of singles/ply twist you use. Why not do a little test? Make four little 5–10 yard samples:
- lower singles twist and higher ply twist (your fresh skein should have 1–2 twists in the Z-direction (to the right)
- higher singles twist and lower ply twist (your fresh skein should have 1–2 twists in the S-direction (to the left)
- The same (higher) amount of singles and ply twist (your fresh skein should hang in a perfect loop).
- The same (lower) amount of singles and ply twist (your fresh skein should hang in a perfect loop).
See what yarn you like best, and it’ll give you lots of information going forward! You might find that you agree with me about less singles twist or that you disagree and want more than or the same singles twist as your ply twist. Any of those scenarios is fine! It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the same yarn that I like or that your spinning friends like; it’s most important that you find the yarn you love!
Want Jillian or Jacey to take a stab at your question? Tell us what you want to know:
Passing the Torch: How Michael Pauly Built SpinOlution and Continues with SpinPerfect
It all began when Michael Pauly’s wife bought a handmade wheel from a local craftsman. “I looked at it and said, ‘I can do better than that,’” he recalls. What started as a hobby quickly became a full-fledged pursuit. His first wheel was, by his own admission, “really terrible,” but he kept refining. Over time, he built eleven traditional wheels, each more refined than the last. The final one earned Best in Show at the New York State Fair. Satisfied, he walked away from wheelmaking—or so he thought.
In 2008, after retiring from the Air Force, Pauly felt the pull to design again. That’s when SpinOlution was born. His focus from the beginning was safety and function. “I wanted a wheel that was safe around little kids,” he said, remembering how he once ran a sewing machine needle through his thumb as a child. He also wanted wheels that were easy to use and maintain—where spinners could remove a bobbin without disassembling the whole setup.
The first SpinOlution wheel was the Mach 1. From there, Pauly’s ideas grew into a full product line with options ranging from small, beginner-friendly wheels to wheels with massive 64-ounce-capacity bobbins used for spinning rope. “Some people want something huge, and we’re here for that,” he explained. But he was always focused on what the everyday spinner needed. “The 8-ounce bobbin is just about perfect.”
As the company grew, Pauly was soon overwhelmed trying to keep up with the demand for his wheels. That’s when he partnered with Roy Wallace, who began producing wheels during the 2008 recession. Now, seventeen years later, Pauly is officially stepping back. “Roy is taking over the company,” he said. “He’s better at making the wheels than I am.” SpinOlution’s future is now in Wallace’s hands. But Pauly hasn’t stopped designing.
SpinPerfect is his newest project, begun during the COVID-19 pandemic when he “had nothing better to do.” The focus of SpinPerfect is 3D-printed spinning tools, like bobbins and the PaulyWinder, a tensioning mechanism that distributes yarn evenly across a bobbin.
Unlike SpinOlution, Pauly intends to keep this one in the family. “It’s something I can pass on to my wife,” he said. “She doesn’t like working with machines, but she can manage this. It means she’ll have income when I’m no longer here.”
SpinPerfect isn’t about flashy innovation—it’s about offering spinners more choices, more tools, and more understanding. Pauly hopes the project empowers spinners not only to create, but to learn. “I always tell people: learn your machine. Take it apart. Put it back together. That’s how you keep it working.”
For Michael Pauly, spinning wheels have never been about yarn. They’re about curiosity, connection, and creating things that last.
Rainbow Yarn
by Kat Pong
I love rainbows. My first rainbow yarn was a long gradient. I took rainbow-dyed Three Feet of Sheep braids from Frabjous Fibers, spun them end to end, then chain plied. When I knit a scarf from the yarn, it created long rainbows, big chunks of color gently fading from one to the next. There’s magic in the full spectrum – red to violet, warm to cool. Fire to air to earth to water. A blending of the elements.
An idea formed in my mind – rainbow yarn, but this time I wanted six strands, one of each color, forming a spiral. I started looking for examples, and I found marled yarns of two or three colors, cabled yarn, fractal yarn, but not 6-strand rainbow yarn. Was it not done because the colors turned to mud? How would a yarn like that look worked up?
I bought six classic rainbow colors in 100% merino combed top from Paradise Fibers: Scarlet, Clementine, Jonquil, Emerald, Royal, and Violet. I measured off an ounce of each and Z-spun them into worsted singles of about 40 WPI.
Plying with six singles can get a little tricky; besides tangling and pigtails, proper tension, and all the usual challenges, there’s also all the bobbin-shaped objects and lazy kate space requirements.
The big secret to multiple plies is that there needs to be constant tension on the singles right up to the moment they start to twist together. Eventually, I built myself a lazy kate that had two columns with multiple bolts going across on each side. If I don’t have enough bobbins, I now wind each single onto an empty toilet paper roll and place each one on the lazy kate spaced as far apart as possible. I string a cotton yarn (Sugar and Cream worsted) so that it is slightly taut in front of all the “bobbins” on both sides to make it a tensioned lazy kate. I string each single in between the cotton yarn’s plies, so that the cotton yarn also acts as an extra set of fingers. I pull all the strands at the same time and keep tension throughout as I build up twist and let the wheel take up the yarn.
Before I made my lazy kate, I found using the ball winder and then placing each ball in a separate empty tissue box also works pretty well (don’t use the center pull option unless you want six messes). Gravity and the plastic sleeve help keep tension on the singles.
I place the kate with all the singles on the other side of one hand and distribute the singles between the fingers of that hand, leaving the thumb available to add tension to a specific strand when needed. If I need to pause while plying, I use a piece of tape or a pin to tack down all the singles so no spin enters past that holding hand. The other hand pulls through a length of the singles and then slides down to allow the twist to enter smoothly. I keep the tension from the wheel high and the speed much lower than what I use to spin singles. I over-ply slightly, as a noticeable amount of twist is lost when the yarn winds onto the bobbin.
That first yarn was about 236 yards, 5.4 oz in total, S-plied, 12 WPI. The yarn is soft, squishy, and pleasantly round.
I finish my yarn in a warm bath with Dawn soap and a splash of vinegar, then give it a warm rinse and roll it out in a towel, with just a few light snaps to even out the twist. For this yarn, I created samples in knit, crochet, and woven, using it as an accent against a black bamboo handspun. I liked the effect of the yarn in small doses in knit and crochet, and I was pleased with how the rainbow effect is preserved in the woven sample. Later, I also tried a sample of bargello-style embroidery (my own design), paired with crewel wool embroidery thread.
I also tried cabling two ways: First, S-plying with extra spin 3 x 2-ply (red, orange), (yellow, green), and (blue, purple), then Z-plying those 3 couples. Second, S-plying with extra spin 2 x 3-ply (red, orange, yellow) and (green, blue, purple), and then Z-plying the trios. Both cabled yarns created a different lovely pattern. They were 14 WPI cabled yarns that felt somewhat ropy and firm, not squishy. They seemed more like something that would stand on their own, perhaps as a necklace, or shoelaces.
The final experiment was to S-ply each color on itself with extra spin, and then Z-ply those six colors together. This created the clearest rainbow yarn where each color was clearly defined, a 12-strand cable, 10 WPI. The yarn was smooth, round, and firm, but not ropy (bumpy) as the other two cabled yarns were.
Experimenting with rainbow yarns opens up many spinning possibilities for me. I’m looking forward to trying different color combinations. Or maybe wrapping a 6-strand multi-colored yarn in yet another color. Any worries I had about visual tension with so many colors are laid to rest. It turns out, rainbows are beautiful wherever you find them! Happy spinning!
Kat Pong is a part-time fiber artist living in Maryland with her husband, six-year-old son, and two cats. Crochet, sewing, knitting, and embroidery were passed down through the family, but Kat’s latest passion is spinning. She loves rare sheep breeds and her Spinolution Monarch, and just like her kid, her favorite color is “rainbow.”
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