PLY strives to bring together the global spinning community and give a voice to spinners everywhere. Is there an upcoming event you’d like to share? Do you have or know of a new product, fiber, or tool you think the community should know about? If so, fill out this form!
Once each month, we’ll feature SCENE content on the blog and social media.
What are you waiting for? Let us know what’s cool, hep, lit, fire in your fiber world!
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/scene.png344750Meagan Condonhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngMeagan Condon2024-11-14 09:00:002024-11-13 10:41:47SCENE: Upcoming in the Community
Maybe you’ve just learned how to spin and now you are struggling to create consistent yarn. Or perhaps you’ve been spinning for a long time and are ready to refine your technique. These tips will help you create a more consistent yarn.
Tip One: Know Your Staple
If you are experiencing problems with inconsistent yarn, it is often related to drafting. Whether you’re a new spinner or an old hand, it is always valuable to go back and check the staple of your fiber and adjust your hands. For newer spinners, it is a question of building up muscle memory. For experienced spinners, it is easy to fall into hand habits and default movements.
Remember, aim to hold your hands roughly 1 to 1.5x the staple length. If your hands are too far apart, you will wind up with thin spots where your fiber drafted too much. If your hands are too close together, you might be wearing out your hands by fighting to draft your fiber from both ends. This can result in thick sections in your yarn.
Also try to reach the same distance into your fiber supply each time you draw fibers into the draft zone. The deeper into your fiber supply you pull from, the more fibers in your drafting zone and the thicker yarn you will make.
Tip Two: Rhythm, Rhythm, Rhythm
Rhythm is everything in spinning. Consistent yarn requires the same number of twists in a particular length of yarn, throughout an entire skein. If you’re like me, rhythm doesn’t come naturally.
First, try to practice treadling your wheel with nothing on it; no fiber, no yarn. Treadle while watching a movie. Treadle while having a conversation. The more you practice treadling, the more regular you will become, even if you don’t have a strong internal sense of rhythm. When you practice treadling, you are increasing your muscle memory and reinforcing the neural network. The less you have to consciously think about treadling, the easier it is to find rhythm.
If all else fails and you can’t find a natural rhythm, don’t give up. You can always count. You read that right. Count your treadles for each time you draft. Even if you can’t keep a steady treadle, you can make sure you’re still getting the same amount of twist each time you draft. A funny thing happens when you manually count treadles; often, your rhythm and your muscle memory kick in when you least expect it.
Tip Three: Sleep on It
All this practice sounds fantastic, but there’s one more thing you need to bring it all together – a good night’s sleep. Research has shown that sleep is necessary for the consolidation of information. Basically, during sleep, the brain retraces the neural pathways used for a particular task and determines which pathways are the most efficient. By reinforcing certain pathways, the same information is more likely to travel along those pathways, saving the brain resources. If you’re feeling frustrated after a spinning session, set your work aside and come back to it the next day. You’ll be amazed at the difference it can make.
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/00000IMG_00000_BURST20200507233627113_COVER-1-e1729767702214.jpg629839Meagan Condonhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngMeagan Condon2024-10-29 09:00:002024-10-24 15:53:49Three Tips for Making Consistent Yarn
Hello! If you have found your way to this little corner of the internet, I take it that you are at least somewhat interested in learning how to spin yarn. Well, new friend, you have come to the right place!
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/image2.jpeg616828Guest Bloggerhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngGuest Blogger2024-07-15 20:50:132024-10-22 10:30:32So You Wanna Learn to Spin
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Photo-Nov-15-2023-9-00-17-AM-scaled.jpg25601920Guest Bloggerhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngGuest Blogger2024-07-13 21:07:562024-10-22 10:30:47Step Away from Your Electric Wheel
As I trace my steps in the world of spinning, I realize it is not a straight progression. I think that’s okay because just as I have been told over and over again that there is no absolutely correct way to spin, I believe there is no absolutely correct way to learn how to spin. But the end is the same – the delicious accomplishment of turning fibres into yarn!
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Andrew-Presentation-2.jpg7981440Guest Bloggerhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngGuest Blogger2024-04-16 18:22:562024-10-22 10:31:06Make the Best Better
https://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/PLY_Blog.png371719Guest Bloggerhttps://plymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/plylogo-condensed-pnk-300x164.pngGuest Blogger2024-01-30 20:37:552024-02-11 11:34:59Ask Jacey: Commercial Yarns as a Supporting Ply for Art Yarns
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.
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
Essential Website Cookies
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
Google Analytics Cookies
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
Other external services
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
Other cookies
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them: