PLY article index

Search for articles in published issues of PLY Magazine. You can search by any or all of the options: author, word(s) in the title, word(s) in the description, issue topic, or article topics. Note that the article topics search will show results of articles that fit ALL of the selected topics.

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Total Records Found: 1356, showing 25 per page
Author	Article Title	Issue date	Issue number	Issue topic	Article topic list	Description
	Tip Jar: How do you get your loftiest yarn	Autumn 2022	38	Loft	loft, expanding skills	We all love a lofty, airy yarn! PLY readers give you tips and tricks on how to get the loftiest spin.
	Tip Jar: How do you deal with spinning blends with drastically different lengths	Summer 2022	37	Mix	blending, expanding skills	Blends with different lengths of fiber can be difficult. PLY readers give you their best tips for how to spin these tricky blends.
Judith MacKenzie	It Begins, of Course, with Sheep and with Scotland	Summer 2022	37	Mix	sheep, personal reflection	All mammals originate in one individual spot on the planet and spread, depending on how generally adaptable they are, to different landscapes and climates. Sheep are amazingly adaptable. From their earliest known domestication in northeastern Iraq, they eventually became a staple of Scottish life and cloth, as examined in this article.
Christopher Kale	Prep It! Getting Speckled	Summer 2022	37	Mix	prep it, textured/art yarn, drum carder	The attraction and beauty of speckled yarn are the bursts and smears of contrasting color which create unpredictable bits of interest. In this article, learn how to produce an engaging yarn that will also use up the scraps which so often go to waste. Practically everything is usable!
Christopher Kale	Spin It! Speckles and Fades	Summer 2022	37	Mix	spin it, textured/art yarn, color	Using a speckled preparation to spin a color-fading yarn.
Christopher Kale	Knit It! Torculus Cowl	Summer 2022	37	Mix	knit it, cowl, color, textured/art yarn	A Torculus is a symbol from medieval musical notation: one symbol representing a set of 3 distinct and separate notes, forever connected and defined by their relationship to each other, much like the colors in this handspun yarn. Knitting pattern for a linen-stitch cowl in light worsted weight yarn.
Linda Poole	Prairie Badger: Wool that looks, feels, and does good	Summer 2022	37	Mix	sheep, shepherding, wool, breed-specific	Creating climate-smart sheep with luxurious fiber through targeted crossbreeding.
Diane Burrows	To Cross-breed or To Cross-blend	Summer 2022	37	Mix	sheep, blending, CVM, Rambouillet, Cotswold, experimenting, Finn	Crossbreeding can create unique fleeces, but how do they compare to a cross-blend from the component breeds? This article investigates that question.
Laura Linneman	An Experiment in Mixing Plies	Summer 2022	37	Mix	experimenting, plying, Corriedale, Cormo, woolen, worsted	True worsted and true woolen yarns have distinct properties. But what happens when you mix those different singles?
Michael Kelson	Mixing It Up with Mawata	Summer 2022	37	Mix	silk, expanding skills	Mawata is composed of single silk cocoons processed and stretched onto a square frame to dry and form layers in a final “handkerchief.” In this article, learn how to prepare and spin mawata as one component of a finished mixed yarn.
Debbie Held	Prep It! Blending Board Beauty	Summer 2022	37	Mix	prep it, blending board, blending	A long-running debate among spinners is whether the most versatile prep tool is a set of hand combs or hand cards or even a drum carder, but this spinner advocates for the humble, affordable, and powerful blending board with an overview of some of the possible fiber preparations it can produce.
Debbie Held	Weave It! No Mistakes Scarf	Summer 2022	37	Mix	weave it, scarf	It’s all too easy to bemoan imperfect attempts at any craft. This article on freeform weaving may open your eyes to embracing those imperfections and using all your yarns.
Meagan Condon	Mixing Business and Pleasure	Summer 2022	37	Mix	community	Congratulations on starting your new fiber arts business! Before you make that first sale, though, this article has a few things you need to know.
Emily Wohlscheid	The Big Mix	Summer 2022	37	Mix	blending, drum carder, drum carding, Cormo, CVM, cotton, flax, Rambouillet, silk, mohair, Teeswater, locks, bamboo, add-ins, texture	Yes, it’s possible to combine intentional spinning with improvisation! Explore some unique fiber blends and their finished yarns in this article.
Charan Sachar	Tackling Texture	Summer 2022	37	Mix	textured/art yarn, color, add-ins, corespinning, lockspinning	Explore creating art yarns from blended batts.
Donna Kay	Opposites Attract: Blending alpaca	Summer 2022	37	Mix	blending, alpaca, Clun Forest, Romney, experimenting, short forward draft, knitting	Taking advantage of alpaca’s best characteristics—softness, drape, and silky hand—to create successful blends with Clun Forest and Romney wools.
Michelle Boyd	The Fold Unfolded	Summer 2022	37	Mix	from the fold, expanding skills	Spinning from the fold is the perfect mix of worsted and woollen spinning. Learn how this technique blurs the lines between the two styles of spinning while keeping the characteristics of both.
Jill Duarte	Blending Plant and Animal	Summer 2022	37	Mix	blending, dyeing, drum carder, cotton, Merino, CVM, silk, flax, wool	Fundamentally, celluloseand cellulose-derived fibers are chemically and structurally different from animal fibers. What do you do when you want to combine them for vibrant blends? This article addresses some unique treatments and different methods for prepping and dyeing.
Iris Eenmae	The Behavior of Twist in Weaving	Summer 2022	37	Mix	twist, weaving, experimenting	Intentional use of twist direction in woven cloth can achieve discernible effects. This experiment explores those effects.
Leslie Ann Bestor	An Exploration of Thread Plying	Summer 2022	37	Mix	plying, experimenting, color, wool, silk	Plying with thin, commercially spun “thread” can let your handspun singles take center stage and create an intriguingly textured yarn. Learn about a few of the factors to consider when deciding if and how to thread ply.
Jacey Boggs Faulkner	Differential Shrinkage: A boucle spinning hack	Summer 2022	37	Mix	boucle, textured/art yarn, alpaca, BFL, silk, Corriedale, cotton, Polwarth, Wensleydale, yak	As dry as “differential shrinkage” sounds, it’s simple and your spinner’s brain already knows it: different fibers shrink at different rates. In this article, learn how to exploit that fact for an easier bouclé effect.
Penelope Hemingway	In the Scribbling Mills	Summer 2022	37	Mix	historical	Learning about the realities of early 19th-century wool mills from primary sources, a set of personal diaries by scribbling mill owner Joseph Rogerson.
Ellen Thomas	The Happiest Hooker	Summer 2022	37	Mix	personal reflection	One spinner’s journey into rug hooking.
Ellen Thomas	Hook It! Sitting Pretty Chair Pad	Summer 2022	37	Mix	BFL	The basics of combining spinning and rug hooking to create a unique circular chair pad from handspun yarn.
Jillian Moreno, Judith MacKenzie, Emily Wohlscheid, Stephenie Gaustad, Jacey Boggs Faulkner	Take 5: Spinning the Same Mixed Batt	Summer 2022	37	Mix	batts, textured/art yarn, woolen, boucle, crepe	Five spinners take on the same mixed batt and end up with five unique yarns.