It was the night of the mini-sample. I spun two little bobbins, about 2 grams each, and plied them. I like the ratio I’ve been spinning them at, which is 12:1, but as I mentioned last night I have not yet found the right plying tension to give me a balanced skein. Really, tension isn’t the right word for the plying. What I haven’t figured out is how many treadles to use per plying “pull”.
When plying, the trick is to pull the singles straight between the back hand and the forward hand, then let the twist travel down them by sliding the pinch down toward the back hand. Then you let the whole section go into the orifice onto the plying bobbin. The more times you treadle during that process, the more twist goes into the ply. So I get a rhythm going, counting down with each one. That way it stays pretty even. The ratio of the whorl I’m using is 9:1, and I went 10 treadles per “pull”. That’s 3 more than last night, which was seriously under-plied.
I just took it out of the water and hung it to dry. Happily, it’s doing just one twist to the right, which is not too bad. Tomorrow night I’ll try one additional treadle to see if that balances it without going too far.
Until tomorrow.
