PLY article index

Want an easy way to introduce texture into your spinning? Emily introduces and walks you through building tweed batts on a drum carder using wool, locks, silk noil, and more. She talks about color, material, amounts, and carding techniques with lots of joy and personality.

Want an easy way to introduce texture into your spinning? Emily introduces and walks you through building tweed rolags on hand cards using wool, locks, silk noil, and more. She talks about color, material, amounts, and carding techniques with lots of joy and personality.

Emily takes us through spinning tweed yarns from batts and rolags. She spins woolen, worsted, thick, thin, 2-ply, and 3-ply to show us the differences in how the tweed effects affect the yarn’s look.

The author shares her journey in the fiber arts, which started with weaving and then led to spinning. She also talks about how she adapts her crafting to her physical disability.

Chairs are an important part of the spinner’s toolkit. How do you find a good, supportive “task chair” to keep you spinning happily?

Cotton has been grown around the world for thousands of years, leading to many approaches to spinning it. Learn about four different spindle styles suited specifically to cotton spinning.

A practical introduction to spinning cotton on takhli (bowl-supported spindle), akha (drop spindle), horizontal palm-supported spindle, and Navajo-style supported spindle.

Two spinners offer their opinions on why—and whether—to scour cotton by boiling prior to preparation and spinning.

Hundreds of years ago, Puebloan farmers in New Mexico established a tidy grid-field system for cultivating their domesticated cotton. This article presents archaeological evidence of the unique technology they used.

This article reaches back across generations of Pueblo artisans to replicate a prehistoric cotton openwork sprang shirt, found by amateur archaeologists in 1923.

From a museum visit in 2013 grew a collaborative project: recreating the prehistoric cotton openwork sprang shirt found by amateur archaeologists 90 years earlier, dated to the 13th century A.D. The research and crafting process is documented in this article.

Two crocheters in a Ugandan village began by leveraging their skills to support local women’s economic advancement and expanded into an independent fiber studio and new projects, all for the benefit of their community.

Spinning cotton isn’t as scary as it’s made out to be, even if you’re used to working with wool. This article walks through spinning a fine 2-ply yarn and gives some pointers on altering your spinning habits for this fiber.

Knitting pattern for a short-sleeved, slip-stitch sweater in natural green and white fingering-weight cotton yarn.

One cloth epitomizes India’s freedom struggle—the handspun and handwoven khadi, a non-violent fabric linked with independence from British rule. This article explores khadi’s philosophical history and its economic importance in India.

Yes, you can and should use your earliest handspun yarns! Experiment with preparation and crafting, like the author does in creating cotton towels in this article, and see what you learn from the experience.

Cotton is an amazing and ancient fiber. Spinning cotton is a joy, but it is different than spinning wool, silk, or flax. Cotton is a short fiber – depending on where it was grown, staple length can range from as long as 2 inches to much less than an inch. This shorter staple is not a bad thing; it just makes it a little different and sometimes a little more difficult to spin with consistency. This article covers tips for spinning cotton and specifically spinning yarn for the Boll to Bolt Curtains.

This article provides an overview of cotton, including a brief historical of cultivating cotton, benefits of cotton, and practical uses.

This article describes the lessons that spinning cotton taught the author, about the fiber, about spinning, and about herself.

This article describes options for finding plant materials in the local area (both in the author’s garden and the desert) and discusses how to prepare cotton for natural dyeing. The author experiments with the dye materials and shares the colors created from those dyes.

This article describes how to card cotton and make a puni, with step-by-step photos of the process using hand cards.

This article discusses how to blend cotton with other fibers using hand cards. The author considers what fiber characteristics you might consider when planning your blends and then explains the blending process and provides helpful tips for a successful experience.

This article describes the charkha and how to spin on one. It covers spinning in both S and Z directions as well as plying considerations. The article also includes tips for increasing spinning speed on the charkha.

Do you want to learn to spin cotton but are nervous? PLY readers give you tips and tricks for getting started.