Ask Jillian: Playing with Fractal Spinning

Do you ever use the fractal style spinning for anything else besides a single braid? 

~Kate, Taos, New Mexico 

Hi Kate! I do! I first read about fractal spinning in an article by Janel Laidman way back in 2007. I like to use the technique to break up hard or clear striping in braids that are dyed with a pattern, but I also use it to create more marling in other yarns. 

Here’s an example of a fractal spin with a single braid dyed to stripe. 

I split a braid in two lengthwise and spun one half on a bobbin. I divided the other half into four parts lengthwise and spun them one after the other on a second bobbin. Then I plied them together. 

Each time a braid is stripped narrower, each color is shortened. By plying different-sized divisions together, I’m combining long and short color runs within a colorway. This fractures the stripes so that the colors meet up in some spots, marl in some spots, and meet then marl in some spots. The difference between a matching ply and a fractal ply looks like this: 

I love the look of the fractal ply because it has motion and visual texture and it’s just more exciting to me than simple stripes. Of course you can play with the numbers of divisions and the order of the colors and the number of plies. It provides endless fun. 

I use a fractal-style division anytime I want colors more mixed up. The results are usually pretty subtle, but I like them. 

I did it when I combined these two braids: 

I used the darker braid as the long color and spun it onto one bobbin. I divided the lighter braid into four pieces and spun them in succession on another bobbin, then plied. 

It ended up looking like this: 

Here’s a comparison between one ply of each: both long color runs (on the left) and the fractal division (on the right).  

Like I said, it’s subtle, but I like how the lighter colors seem sprinkled or more dispersed over the darker color braid as it rolls through its color pattern in the fractal division. The 2-ply with equal amounts of color runs looks more like two colorways competing for my attention. 

So play with that fractal-style division. You’ll make amazing and sometimes surprising yarns. My next fractal play is going to be combining fractal division with a cable structure. 

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