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wool from different breeds of sheep demonstrating different lengths of fiber
Meagan Condon

The Goldilocks Problem: Staple Length Matters 

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Staple length—the average length of individual fibers in a fiber preparation—is one of the most important characteristics to consider when preparing and spinning fiber by hand with a worsted technique. Whether you’re spinning Merino or a longwool like Wensleydale, understanding staple length helps you to control your drafting technique and create the yarn you intend. 

I consider this the Goldilocks problem of worsted spinning.  The goal is to position your hands to allow you to draft “just right.”   

Whether you use a forward or backward draw when you spin, your hands draft the fibers out into a narrower strand before or while twist is being added. The distance between your hands creates a drafting zone: if your hands are too close together for the staple length of the fiber, the fibers won’t slide past each other easily.  You are essentially holding both ends of the same fiber and I promise the fiber is stronger than you in this tug-of-war match. 

If your hands are too far apart, you may lose control of the draft, especially with short fibers.  You might find that as you draft, the fiber suddenly comes loose and drifts apart, leaving you holding two separate sections of fiber and a whole lot of frustration. 

The ultimate goal is to set your hands at just about the average staple length, so the fibers can move and draft smoothly without pulling apart.  Not too wide, not too narrow, but just right.     

For short-stapled fibers, like cotton or yak, your hands need to be close together—sometimes only an inch or two apart—to control the drafting and prevent the fibers from slipping apart. One of the reasons we often choose a long draw for these fibers is because of how difficult it can be to maintain such a short draft zone.   

Medium-staple fibers, such as Corriedale or Romney, are more forgiving. You can draft them with your hands 4–6 inches apart.  Many spinners find their comfort zone in this range. 

Long-stapled fibers, like Lincoln or silk, require your hands to be farther apart—sometimes MUCH further apart.  If you hold your hands too close, these long fibers won’t draft well; instead, they’ll resist movement or break under the stress.  

Matching your hand placement to staple length is essential for an efficient, consistent, and ergonomically sound draft and to avoid unnecessary frustration. If you are ever fighting your fiber while spinning, stop and ask yourself if your hands are too far apart, too close together, or just right! 

Karen

Knitting Patterns for Handspun Yarn

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Although you can use handspun yarn in almost any knitting pattern, sometimes there are patterns that work better than others for handspun. This is especially true if you have limited yardage, have any inconsistencies in the yarn, or aren’t sure about what gauge you should be aiming for. 

With those ideas in mind, finding patterns that allow for variations in gauge and yardage are the most helpful to make something you’ll love that allows your handspun yarn to shine in all its glory. 

Karen’s Musselburgh Hat WIP.
Karen’s Quaker Yarn Stretcher Boomerang Shawl.

Variable gauge 

One of the places to start is to look for patterns that can be adapted based upon your gauge. That way you can find the needle size that creates a fabric you like with your yarn and use that gauge for the pattern. If you’re searching for patterns on Ravelry, for example, in the advanced search options, you can select “any gauge” under Weight to help find these patterns. Here are some of the ones that caught my eye (note: all links are to Ravelry). 

Musselburgh Hat by Isolda Teague: This has been one of my go-to patterns for hats because it’s adaptable to various yarns with tables that give you all the stitch counts based upon your gauge (which you take by casting on the hat and measuring when you have an inch or two of fabric—no gauge swatch needed!). It creates a double-sided hat, which you wear by folding one side into the other, so you’re making two hats in one. This allows for using two different yarns (switching at the halfway point of the knitting), stripes, or even adding in stitch patterns. (Pictured is my in-progress handspun Musselburgh.) 

The Traveler Cowl by Andrea Mowry: This cowl is knit on the bias (flat and seamed), which makes it a great candidate for handspun yarn of any size as you can adjust the final size of the cowl as you go. In fact, the designer had handspun yarn in mind for this pattern. 

Boomerang shawls, various designers: Another great option is to look for boomerang-shaped shawls. These shawls are not quite crescent shawls and not quite triangular shawls but somewhere in between, and the idea is to keep working on them until you run out of yarn. So they’re great both from a variable gauge standpoint as well as from a yardage standpoint. I’m currently working on the Handspun Boomerang Shawl by Natasha Sills and have also made a Quaker Yarn Stretcher Boomerang by Susan Ashcroft (pictured). 

Speaking of Susan Ashcroft, you should check out more of her patterns (Stichnerd Designs) because she has several other “yarn stretcher” or “boomerang” patterns that can work wonderfully with handspun. She has a whole bundle of her patterns that she’s made specifically for those patterns that work well with handspun yarn. 

Tensfield or Langfield by Martina Behm: These two hat patterns (the second is the slouchy version) have a fun construction that will showcase your handspun yarn. Even better, because you adjust the size as you knit, it doesn’t matter what weight of yarn or gauge you use. I haven’t made one of these yet, but I’ve just added the pattern to my queue! 

Aunt Maggie by Shilo Weir: This free knitting pattern was created after the designer received encouragement during a spinning class with Maggie Casey to make sure to knit with their handspun. Written with a variety of yarn weights in mind, from sport to bulky, the pattern information includes a note about how much yarn you’ll need to complete the cowl. 

What if you don’t want an accessory but instead want to make a sweater? Designer Elizabeth Felgate has several sweater and cardigan patterns that can be made using any weight of yarn. Even better – you don’t even have to calculate your gauge! The construction of the garments has you measure your progress as you go (in inches or cm) to get the size you want. 

What other patterns have you found that work well with handspun? Share them in the comments! 

Jacey Faulkner

PLY Guild: Second Season Drop – Episode 3

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I am thrilled to report that the third episode of the second (worsted) season of the PLY Guild has dropped and is almost ready for your viewing pleasure! It’ll be up on July 18th (we had a little family emergency and so it’s running behind 2-3 days).

This episode is all about combs! You’ll learn how to choose combs and use combs from some great teachers including: Maggie Casey, Laura Linneman, Michelle Boyd, and Jacey Boggs Faulkner. We’ll cover 2-pitch Viking combs, 4-pitch English combs, 3-d printed combs, combing with clamped combs, combing with unclamped combs, combing with a hackle, dizzing, and planking! It’s a long episode so set aside some time, get out whatever combs you have (or some fiber and a wheel/spindle) and enjoy! If you don’t have combs, don’t worry, the next episode is all about creating worsted preparations without combs! 

Watch the episode now!

We’ll see you again with a new episode in six weeks (but in the meantime, come see us in a spin-in)! If you haven’t already gotten your membership, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! 

Join the PLY Spinners Guild here 

If you’d like to learn more from your favorite fiber instructors, make sure your membership is active! Each month is jam packed with new instructional videos and virtual spin-ins. Membership is cumulative, meaning you get access not only to the current episode, but also to every previous episode and recorded spin-in as well. 

The PLY Spinners Guild (PSG) hosts three 90 minute spin-ins every month: 

  • On the first Sunday of every month, guild members meet and spin at 5 p.m. Pacific.   
  • On the third Sunday of every month, guild members meet and spin at 10 a.m. Pacific. 
  • On the third Thursday of every month, guild members meet and spin at 5 p.m. Pacific. (This is the Building Skills Spin-in for spinners who want a less technical experience than our other spin-ins!)

The guild is priced at $85/year or $12/month. This is a very good deal for the amount of information and community you will get, especially since new video lessons are added every six weeks! This fee allows us to pay for the substantial hosting required by so many high-def videos and the charge per member to access the site, along with fairly compensating the teachers, editors, and everyone involved in making the guild work. 

If you aren’t already a member, we think you’d definitely enjoy it! 

The PLY Spinners Guild is a space for spinners at all levels of spinning. We are an inclusive and diverse community that embraces all spinners and welcomes everyone to create a brave space to question, challenge, and support one another. We strongly believe that the more diverse our community is, the stronger our community is. Our core beliefs of kindness, diversity, and inclusivity inform everything we do. Racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression will not be tolerated. We reserve the right to remove anyone who meaningfully and purposefully disrupts the community or makes other members feel unsafe. 

Jillian Moreno

Ask Jillian: How Do I Keep My Colors Clear in Chain Ply?

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I am so frustrated that the colors in my chain-plied yarn keep combining. I want my yarn to look as close to my hand-dyed braid as possible. Tell me how to keep my colors clear and unmarled. ~Donna, Harrisville, NH

Hi Donna,

I hate when that happens! The number one reason that I chain ply is to keep my hand-dyed braid color clear and unmixed with others. Last month Jacey got us started with chain plying; now let’s fine tune for clearer color.

I want my yarns to look more like the small skein on the right than the one on the left.

I love the motion of chain plying because it’s so relaxing, but I found if I change a couple of things I get clearer colors.

I slow down, pay attention to where the color changes are, and use a variety of loop sizes while I ply.

My usual chain-ply loop is the size of an orange, sometimes bigger. I can happily ply along for an entire bobbin with loops of that size. But when I keep my loops the same, on the bigger side, my colors mix and marl when colors transition.

I taught myself to make loops about the size of a chubby grape, and I use those smaller loops when the colors change in my singles. The yarn will still barber pole, but the length of the marled section is much smaller, the size of the smaller loop.

I do have to slow my roll when I treadle and watch my singles to see when the colors change, but that extra time is worth it to me for the colors I want. I usually use two or three smaller loops right before the color change, one at the color change, and two or three after the color change.

It’s not 100 percent perfect; a lot of the time colors will marl while drafting singles and those will marl in the ply. Comparing the yarn on the left that has large loops and a long stretch of marled colors to the yarn on the right, where I used a combination of loop sizes, I like the flow of the smaller amounts of marled yarn much more.

I try not to fet too much about the small parts that do marl. I can see them when I look closely, but when I look at my yarn as a whole skein, the overall look is clear, beautiful color.

Want Jillian or Jacey to take a stab at your question? Tell us what you want to know:

Ask Jacey and Jillian!

Meagan Condon

Breed Development through Upgrading

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Many of the sheep breeds found in the United States are being developed through a technique called upgrading. The United States (like many European countries) has strict regulations on the importation and exportation of live animals and particular breeds. As a result, there are many wonderful sheep breeds that can’t be brought into the United States, like Gotland, Teeswater, Herdwick, Bluefaced Leicester, and Black Welsh Mountain. And yet there are American flocks of all these breeds! 

While we can’t import these sheep, we can import semen. A breeder will choose a breed that is close to the breed they want. For example, if a breeder wants Teeswater, they might choose another longwool breed like Leicester Longwool. A Leicester Longwool ewe is inseminated with semen from a Teeswater sheep. The result is a 50/50 genetic blend. This second-generation sheep is then inseminated with Teeswater semen. The resulting lamb is 75/25 Teeswater.  

This process is continued until the sheep being bred have primarily Teeswater genes. An upgraded flock will never be 100 percent genetically the same as the original breed. American Teeswater may be 95–99 percent Teeswater. But chances are you or I would not be able to tell the difference unless one population or the other were heavily modified. 

At this time, Valais Blacknose – the cutest sheep in the world – are being introduced to the United States via upgrading. 

Upgrading is one way we can help preserve breeds and populations that are rare or threatened. Sometimes there aren’t enough sheep left in a population to have sustainable genetic diversity. Upgrading offers a solution for saving threatened breeds. 

Have you ever spun a fleece from an upgraded sheep? If so, what genetic percentages did it have? What qualities did the fleece have? 

A small flock of Teeswater sheep. © Copyright Paul Buckingham and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 2.0.
Meagan Condon

Book Review: Swatch Critters by Deb Essen

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Swatch Critters from the Pin Loom: Step-by-Step Instructions for Making 30 Cuddly Animals from Woven Squares

by Deb Essen
Publisher: Schiffer Craft
US$24.99, 168 pages
Publication date: August 28, 2025
Buy now at Bookshop.org
Review by Meagan Condon

I am usually hesitant to review pattern books, in part because it takes so long to test out the patterns and I sample far more than I do actual projects. However, Essen managed to set the hook (a size G crochet hook, if you were wondering) and reel me in for this one. 

I have always loved pin loom swatches, and I have an ongoing affair with my Schacht Zoom Loom. I could make little woven squares all day. However, like many others who have taken to the pin loom, I have an unruly stack of said squares that spill out of my stash in anxiety-inducing disarray.  

I’ve looked for ways to use them, but I’ve never been terribly impressed by most of the patterns out there. I’ve found that patterns for using pin loom squares tend to be overly simplified and clumsy. And a scrappy swatch blanket just doesn’t appeal to me.  

Essen’s work immediately caught my eye. The creativity and complexity of the designs goes beyond what I’ve seen in other pin loom pattern books. From Eureka the Unicorn to Pablo the Peacock, the patterns are all adorable. Critters for the win.  

Essen also does a great job explaining how to use a pin loom. Being a left-handed crafter, I found it particularly useful that she included instructions for using the Zoom Loom both left- and right-handed. All of her instructions are clear and concise and the photos are helpful in visually explaining the text. 

After the critter patterns, Essen includes some weaving patterns to add texture to your swatch squares, a great way to customize your critters. 

If you are looking for a way to use up all the scrappy bits of handspun in your stash quickly, this will do it with flair!  

Meagan Condon

How Tariffs are Impacting Fiber Arts in the US

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In the United States, the president works with Congress to create US tariff policy. A tariff is a tax imposed by a government on goods and products imported from another country. The round of tariffs that was implemented most recently is having an impact on the spinning community, and you may not even realize it yet.  

As of the publishing of this article, in the United States, the US president recently escalated a trade war with China, raising tariffs to 145 percent, then agreed to lower them to 10 percent, though tariffs on most Chinese goods are still over 30 percent due to existing duties. The president has also threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on the EU, though that action is on pause. Tariffs for Canada and Mexico have been set at 25 percent on most goods. And there is a minimum tariff of 10 percent on most other countries. That means if you import spindles from Canada for $10 each, the tariff raises the price to $12.50.  

Who pays this import tax? Well, the person or company that imports the item pays the tax. However, it doesn’t end there. That importer increases the price they sell the item for to help them maintain their profit margin. The dyer or spinner or yarn store that buys the wholesale products from the importer is then forced to increase their prices so they can make a living off their dyeing or spinning or reselling. Then you, the customer, spend more of your money to get your dyed or carded fiber or that fancy spinning wheel. So ultimately, tariffs come directly out of our pockets. 

Ashford operates out of New Zealand. Louët wheels are manufactured in the Netherlands. A majority of our silk products come from China.  

Why don’t we just buy US products, then? Many of our US producers, like Clemes and Clemes, have already taken steps to make as much of their product as possible in the United States. As a result, their prices have managed to stay relatively stable.  

Very little of what we use is entirely made in the US, though. Wheels and carders and other tools use imported parts, even if they are constructed here. We simply don’t have the infrastructure to produce all of our fiber and tool parts here. We are lucky to have companies that are working to build the infrastructure, but that doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t necessarily going to make the product cheaper for consumers. Our spinning community primarily operates as a recreational industry. Hobby and recreation are often hit the hardest when prices systematically increase.  

What can you do? 

Buy fiber locally. While silk is sexy, there are a ton of wonderful, underappreciated local wools and plant fibers. There is a revival in commercial flax here in the United States. Small farms across the country produce rare and interesting breeds of sheep.  

Buying new tools is trickier, but luckily, our biggest imported tool names tend to be in places that are impacted less by the tariffs. We also have an amazing number of independent woodworkers here in the United States that produce and repair fiber tools, if you know where to look and who to ask. 

And always, make use of your stash! Every fiber artist has one (or is in the process of building one). I can’t count the number of times I’ve complained that I have too much fiber. This may be a good impetus to use some of it! 

Emily Davis-Hale

SCENE: Upcoming Events

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You are SCENE!  Feast your eyeballs on these upcoming fiber events submitted by our readers! 

July 11 – 13: Wyoming Sheep & Wool Festival, Buffalo, Wyoming 

July 19 – 20: Fiber U, Lebanon, Missouri 

July 25 – 26: Fiber Christmas in July, Kellyville, Oklahoma 

July 26 – 27: Prairie City Fiber Fest, Prairie City, Oregon 

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 a 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!  

Submit to SCENE now! 
Emily Davis-Hale

What’s in this issue? Summer 2025 – Tension!

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Tension is one of those elements we use all the time while we spin. We’ve got a whole issue packed full of great information on how tension figures into and impacts your spinning! 

Wheel tension and wheel systems: How do they work and which works best for what type of yarn? James Perry and Heavenly Bresser teach us about break bands and drive bands respectively. Maggie Casey has broken down how tension operates in different wheel drive systems.  

Tensile strength is all about how much tension a fiber can be put under before it breaks. Jill Duarte treats us to a look at how she accomplishes no-nep carding on the drum carder. 

How about visual tension? Why do some colors seem to vibrate and explode when they are next to each other? Dia Patrece Robinson and Emily Wohlscheid have our backs when it comes to color. They talk about different methods to obtain a swirled colorway. 

Tension can be good for yarn, but bad for our bodies. Andrea Deck talks to us about the science of stress relief and Andrea Lui has us covered for hand care with an article focused on proactive care and avoiding hand strain. 

Guys, there is all this and so, so much more and so many AMAZING writers! If you haven’t already gotten your copy, you can order it here.