Low-tech wool (and other fibres) prep

Words and Photos by Joanne Seiff When was the last time you took a lock of raw or washed wool, teased it out into a cloud, and immediately spun it up? When I was taught to spin, back in the dark ages – the mid-1980s – we called this teasing the wool. This low-tech approach […]

Ply Magazine: Now Hiring

Want to work for a great fiber magazine? PLY Magazine has 2 openings! We are looking for a layout/design person and an illustrator. Layout/design This is a freelance, satellite position that is ongoing and includes 4 issues per year. It pays a flat fee per issue, and experience has shown us that, depending on your […]

Dyeing Cloth with Mud

Words and Photos by Suzanne Correira I’ve been experimenting with using mud for coloring cloth ever since I took a class from Judy Dominic in the early 2000s. She studied African mud dyeing extensively. Then I started reading about the Japanese technique of Dorozomo – also mud dyeing. I fell in love with the fun […]

Chasing Cloth

Words and Photos by Melanie Duarte As spinners we are always chasing cloth. The yarn we create may be beautiful on its own and it might hang out longer in our stash than we intended it to, but there probably was a goal when we set out to spin it. More often than not, that […]

Spinning for Lace: A Test

Words and Photos by Barbara Bundick My favorite default yarn is, to put it mildly, frog hair. I spin fine. Lucky for me, I also love to knit lace. The 2 go together quite handily. I’ve heard a number of old wives’ tales about the best yarn for lace knitting. First, 2-ply yarn is supposedly […]

Vend/Teach at PLY Away!

The Power of Colour!

Colour and Power Words and Graphics by Katie Weston As handcrafters and spinners, colour is vitally important. The colour you choose to dye, spin, knit, or weave impacts your final work, your feelings about it, and others’ interpretations of it. This has long been true of colour, which has often been associated with power, as […]