My local "crazy spinners" group did "knot" yarn as described in Pluckyfluff. I love the pun there -- were we spinning yarn, or "knot"? hehehe.
But once I stopped cracking myself up, here are the observations on this type of novelty yarn. This one's pretty easy to spin, yay! not back-breaking finger-twitching complex, as long as you can tie an overhand knot with one hand. Phew. I was spinning way too fine though, my knots disappeared. The lady spinning a 14 WPI single had better knots than me.
So although we decided one session of knot yarn was enough, I plan to have a second go spinning thicker to see if my knots will be more visible.
How do you spin knot yarn, you ask? Take your roving, a short length (we were breaking our roving into about 4-6 inch lengths, depending on the thickness of the roving), spin it, and as you reach the end of that piece of roving, tie a knot (yes, a knot) in the just-made yarn. This means dragging the roving through the knot as you go, so a big loop, please, then tighten it up. Then join another length of roving on and repeat. In the end, I think a knot every foot would not be overkill (ooo she said "not" ...) This is nice as a lofty single that won't need plying, so you needn't overtwist it. I'm not sure (oops ... there's that not again!) if a 2-ply would work, or would lose the knottiness (naughtiness? ah the pun-abilities abound).
I was spinning probably a 20 WPI single -- waaay too fine. I tried to spin thicker (really I did!) but this was Shetland top and it just wasn't cooperating. So batch number two will be done without any drafting at all, or I'll find a medium wool to do this with.
(expansion of a post by me this day on SpinningOnTheEdge)
