That is the question.
I've been teaching the kids in Sophia's class how to spin roving into yarn using a drop spindle. It's been fun. And I gave them a choice yesterday. They could either split their yarn in two and ply it to set the twist (does that make sense? Like a rope that twists on itself to make a strong solid rope), or they could set the twist on a single-ply yarn.
Which was something I'd never done before.
But I'd read about how to do it, and I thought, maybe I could do it.
You wind the single-ply into a hank, like wrapping it around your hand and elbow like you might do with an extension cord. Then you hang one end from something sturdy, and from the other end, you hang something heavy. We used coffee decanters and hung them from a dish drainer weighted down with cafeteria trays. Makeshift. Make do.
This morning I came in and checked on it. Four girls had chosen to set the twist instead of ply, and they set. Fiona's had a bit of a twistiness left to it--some pieces of her yarn were overdone--but her friend Wendy's was absolutely perfect. The other two were more like Fiona's, although all of them were completely usable, no problem there. They were excited. It was a good project.
I'm going to ply my mitten yarn. But I know now how to do it without plying. Maybe next time.
My goodness, those kids are so lucky to have you there to teach them things that I would never learn before I die -- and they'll know them before they are in junior high!
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