Latest Blog Posts
Ask Jacey: Commercial Yarns as a Supporting Ply for Art Yarns
As featured in PLY’s December 2023 newsletter, the Ask Jacey column answers a question about commercial yarns and how they can help create art yarns!
A Sweater Without Compromises
Have you ever blown out the elbow of a favorite sweater? Or knit up an entire sweater only to find you have to wear a turtleneck under it? When choosing a fleece to spin into a sweater, lots of people reach for one end of the spectrum or another: a Merino or associated crossbreed, or something that makes a nice hard-wearing barn sweater like a Romney. However, both of those approaches leave us with a sweater yarn full of compromises. Fortunately, there is an alternative.
How Not To Spin a Sweater
Be prepared to smile and laugh as we learn about a handspun sweater adventure to remember for all the wrong reasons!
The Devotion of a Handspinner: Donna Jo Copeland
At seventy-three-years-young, there is no stopping Donna Jo Copeland from keeping a small flock of sheep, a few quirky angora goats, and about eleven English angora rabbits on Breezy Manor Farm, located in Mooresville, Indiana. After over five decades of shepherding, she is still fascinated by her fiber animals and loves working with the gift of their wool. Let’s learn more about Donna Jo’s flock-to-sweater process, which proves that you are never too old or too young to enjoy fibers.
Weighted in the Past: Warp-weighted Loom Weaving
Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile! I’ve always been a person who has had an insatiable curiosity. I’m not necessarily mechanically inclined, although I can change a tire, troubleshoot a loom issue, or notice when one of my dogs, cats, or ponies is not feeling well. But when it comes to a historic or cultural technique like making linen thread from a flax plant or setting up a traditional warp-weighted loom – well, bring it, as they say!
