Tag: FO 2012

The color of this yarn was not very cooperative – these photos reflect the colors much better than the ‘on-the-bobbin’ photo.

I’ve noticed lately that some new spinners think that you need to have a perfectly balanced skein of yarn when you unwind from your bobbin. Unless you are going for a very loose twist and you aren’t using your yarn for socks, this is not the correct way to be going about things. Sock yarn – or any yarn you plan on using in an item that will get a lot of wear – needs a lot of twist to be hardy and to withstand all that rubbing that goes on underneath your foot while you are walking around.

For example, this is what my yarn looks like when it first comes off my bobbin:

See how it still has some extra twist? I didn’t photograph it but that whole skein just wrapped around itself to the left when I took it off the skeinwinder and the yarn was twisting back on itself like nobody’s business. I went and threw it into a bath of hot water (yep, HOT. As long as you don’t agitate it, you’ll be fine) and some Eucalan:

and let it sit in there until the water had cooled – actually, I think with this I let it sit until I noticed that the water color had darkened and I became nervous that it was going to mess up the yellows in the skein so I took it out and let it sit in my salad spinner until it cooled off. Then I rinsed it with cool water (because the soak water had become blue) spun it out and thwacked it (hit it against the side of my tub a few times) and after it was dry, it was a lovely, balanced, sproingy skein of someday-sock yarn:

That concludes my PSA about handspun without enough twist. ;o) Go forth and be twisty!