Why does my yarn still twist after plying?

By Amelia © July 28, 2013

Your yarn can still twist after plying for several reasons:

The latest tapestry yarn skeins (balanced 2-ply)

1. Underplying

2. Overplying

3. Dormant twist in the singles

4. Plying in the same direction as the singles

5. Plying singles spun in different directions

6. Plying singles with different amounts of twist in them

Let's start with #3: dormant twist in the singles. If you spin two bobbins or spindles of singles and then ply them, well, let's face it, this takes time. Twist in the single starts to go dormant (think of it like falling asleep) as soon as the single is stretched tightly over the surface of the bobbin or spindle. Some fibers (silk, a smooth-surfaced fiber) go dormant more quickly than others (Merino, a high-crimp wool). 

In order to get a balanced ply with these, you need to save a sample of the single, when freshly spun, folded back on itself. This shows the amount of ply twist needed to balance the twist in your single. But, when you ply those singles, the skein is likely to act overplied ... to twist in the opposite direction from the ply twist. This is because the singles' twist went dormant. Luckily, you can re-activate them: a warm soak will awaken the sleeping twist. Once reactivated, as long as you matched that saved sample, you should find out that you have a balanced skein. Voila!

I started there because in order to get an accurate view of how to balance a plied yarn, you really need to have a sample length of the two singles plied with active (non-dormant) twist. If you have consistent twist in each single, then matching that sample as you ply will result in an active skein when the singles  are plied.

So, how about #1, underplying? If your skein is acting underplied (twisting in the same direction it was plied in), then more than likely, it is underplied. The main question is, by how much? Take a short length to soak in warm water and see what the resulting amount of twist is. Wind your skein into a ball or put it on your umbrella skeiner (my preference), and add more plying twist with your spindle or wheel. Match that reactivated sample, and you should find that after a warm gentle finish, your skein is now balanced.

The main cause of #2, overplying, is dormant singles. If your skein twirls in the direction the singles were spun, then it is saying it needs less ply twist. However, if you have not yet washed the skein, and it took more than 5 minutes to spin the singles with plying directly after, you might just wash the skein and see if that was all it needed.

If you have sharp eyes, take a look at the individual fibers in the singles. If they line up along the length of the yarn, then the ply is balanced and a warm soak should wake up the dormant twist in the singles.

If the skein exhibits only 1-2 completes twists, then the yarn will still knit into an unbiased fabric-there’s not enough imbalance to skew the knitting.

If the skein still twists in the single direction after the warm soak, then it is, in fact, overplied. After the skein is dry, take a short length to soak in warm water and see what the resulting amount of twist is. Wind your skein into a ball or put it on your umbrella skeiner (my preference), and remove some plying twist with your spindle or wheel. Match that reactivated sample, and you should find that after a warm gentle finish, your skein is now balanced.

#4. Plying in the same direction as the singles: this is a valid step in constructing complex yarns like Hawsers. If you do this, the skein acts like a scrunchie, shrinking up into half its skeined length. It is so bouncy that it almost can't twist on itself to tell you the cause ... If it could, it would twist in the opposite direction to the ply direction. Leave the yarn on the bobbin and continue constructing your yarn...the goal of most complex yarns is a balanced result, sometimes reached through indirect means like this one.

If this was not your goal, then put your skein on your umbrella skeiner, and ply it in the opposite direction the singles were spun on. this is going to take a fair bit of twisting, as you need to remove all that original "ply" twist and then put in the right amount in the right direction. Be patient, and if your wheel has one, try a higher ration (smaller flyer whorl). 

#5. Plying singles spun in different directions: some yarn constructions use singles spun in different directions: spin one single clockwise (Z), and the other single counterclockwise (S), then ply counterclockwise (S). This is usually an intermediate step in constructing complex yarns such as Energized Cables. The skein acts very odd - the two singles almost seem to repel each other like mis-matched magnets, and twist does everything it can to run out the ends of the skein. The skein typically is stretchy, but doesn't twist strongly clockwise or counterclockwise. Leave the yarn on the bobbin and continue constructing your yarn...the goal of most complex yarns is a balanced result, sometimes reached through indirect means like this one.

If this wasn't your goal, you are a little stuck: one of the most annoying things I have done is separate singles in a plied yarn. You might look up "energized cable" in Sarah Anderson's fabulous book: The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs, and experiment with that. Or, you might rough-finish the skein, fulling it to lock the two singles in place so the yarn acts balanced even though it is not.

#6. Plying singles with different amounts of twist in them: beginners, and even long-time spinners, struggle to get consistent twist in their singles. Part of this is due to inconsistent diameter in the singles. Twist migrates to the thin spots along a length of a single, so getting consistent twist requires getting consistent yarn thickness as well. Part of this is the nature of life: distractions abound, and we are not machines. I let spinning take me to my happy place, so I can use the rhythm of my heartbeat to guide my hands and feet. Getting consistent diameter in my single has been the biggest improvement to the consistency of my plied yarns. That has taken consistent practice. If you can make spinning a daily thing, even a quarter-hour each day, and your focus is on consistent diameter, your consistency will improve. 

Skeins plied with inconsistent singles have little twirly spots where the yarn twists back on itself in an underplied or overplied spot. There may be clearly overplied and clearly underplied lengths in the skein as well. The skeins don't generally twist one direction or the other.

One time when this can happen the easiest is when we are purposefully plying a thick single against a thin one, or plying purposefully thick-and-thin singles. Remember the warm water test? If you can ate a representative length of each single, knot the, together at each end, and put them in a owl of warm water for a few minutes, they will tell you what the appropriate amount of plying twist is along their length. When thick-meets-thin, thin-meets-thin, and thick-meets-thick, each will need its appropriate amount of twist. Match this sample and a balanced skein will result. This is especially useful when one of your "singles" is thread, as it is your handspun single that requires balancing against the thread.

Sometimes, underplying, overplying, or plying mismatched singles is the point of your spinning: if so, be bold, and spin away! There are reasons for each of these to be done. We mainly shoot for balanced yarn as a goal when it suits the purpose of the yarn.

When do you set the twist?

By Amelia © November 6, 2009

"When do you set the twist?" comes up in almost every conversation I have with a new spinner. They're curious to know if they need to set the twist in the singles before plying, how to finish their skein once it's plied, or they want their skein of singles to relax and stop being so curly and twisty.

First, let me jump in with: you don't need to set the twist in your singles, or skein them up and wash them before plying. Just take them as they are, and ply them.

What we do as spinners, is not set the twist so much as either strive for balanced twist so the skein won't be curly and twist -- only possible with plied yarns -- or make the twist go dormant, so an over-plied or under-plied skein, or a skein of singles, seems relaxed and calm. (Secretly, however, it's not -- the twist is sleeping, waiting for a tap on the shoulder to wake it up.)

In fact, the moment you start winding yarn onto your spindle or wheel, you are stretching it out taut as you wind it on (right? right!). Winding the yarn under pressure like that will help the twist go dormant. Even after five minutes, the twist has started to get sleepy. After a weekend, it's snoozing; after a month, a moderate twist single is fairly comatose.

So, when you ply those dozy singles, you need a "live" sample to compare to, if your goal is balanced twist. Balanced twist is cool -- like an arch, the twist in the singles leans against the twist in the ply, each balancing the other out so your yarn appears calm and relaxed, behaves calm and relax, despite having all that twist stored in it. That is what makes yarn stronger than fiber -- the twist, holding the strands together, making the whole appear stronger than the sum of its parts (because we discount the 'invisible' force of the twist).

I usually ply a short length as I am first spinning my singles and save that sample to compare to when I ply. If I've forgotten, then I'll break off a length of singles, say 8", fold it in half, knot the ends together, and put it in a sink of warm water. It will writhe and twist on itself (very cool to see!). Once it's done with its water dance, I take it out, run my fingers along it so the twist is evenly distributed, and dry it in a towel. That sample shows how the singles can balance each other in the ply. If I match that when I'm plying, then I will have a balanced yarn.

Another way to test for balance, while plying, is to look at the fibers in the yarn. A balanced yarn has the fibers aligned along the length of the yarn. It takes strong eyes and good light -- and the right fibers -- to see the individual strands in the yarn.

Once you have plied your yarn, putting the skein in a warm bath will wake up any dormant twist and let you see if the skein is balanced or not. If the skein twists on itself more than 2 complete rotations, then it's underplied if it's twisting in the ply direction; or it's overplied, if it's twisting in the direction the singles were spun. If the skein is overplied or underplied, you can alter the amount of twist with another trip through on your spindle or wheel, adding whichever type of twist it needs (more ply twist or less ply twist).

All this warm bath is doing is waking up dormant twist. If you want to permanently alter the characteristics of your yarn, you have to look at methods that change it in irreversible, or hard to reverse, ways.

The primary method available to the handspinner is fulling -- have a sink of hot water and a sink of cold water, and a skein with plenty of figure eight ties on it. Agitate the skein in the hot sink for a few minutes; squeeze it out. Agitate the skein in the cold sink for a few minutes; squeeze it out. Keep going between sinks a few times -- you may see or feel the skein shrinking down as you do this. You are actually felting the yarn. Be careful, because extremely feltable fibers could become a yarn donut rather than a fulled skein -- test for strand separatability as you do this. You'll want to reskein the skein when you are done, carefully tugging apart any strands that have adhered (lightly, I hope!) to their neighbors.

Oh, and -- fulling only works with feltable fibers; superwash wool and cotton won't full, or not much anyway. I have managed to somewhat full superwash skeins such as the one at the top of the page -- an overplied sock yarn (socks below show no bias) Some wools are more feltable than others, as well. So if you plan to do this, try to felt some of the unspun fiber before committing yourself to the full project.

A milder fulling is to take your freshly washed (not agitated) skein, wrap it in a towel, and whack it really hard on a countertop or other hard surface. Do this a few times from both ends of the skein. This shocks the surface fibers and makes them grab onto the strands more. It helps develop a halo in fibers that do that -- yak, angora, mohair, for example.

Now, I won't do either of these more "shocking" things -- fulling or whacking -- until I've verified that my skein is either balanced, or has the amount of twist I want. I do overply my yarn on purpose -- it's a great way to add durability to sock yarns -- and then full the yarn so that it will knit into a straight fabric. I will shock my singles to get them to quiet down just a touch.

I typically only dry my skeins with weights if I intend to weave with them. That is because I need them to be inelastic to behave well as warp on my loom. But, I don't want to lose their elasticity with a permanent change -- the fabric, once removed from the loom, will be fulled, and in the process the yarn will wake up and regain its elasticity (which is then transformed in the fulling process).

If you wet-block a skein -- dry it with weights or while stretched out -- any active twist in the skein is still in it, dormant, similar to the old singles or yarn still on a spindle or bobbin. If you knit with the wet-blocked yarn and then wash the knit fabric, any twist dormant in the yarn will wake up and can cause the fabric or stitches to bias.

How can you know if your fabric will bias? My usual test is to hold up my just-washed-and-squeezed-out skein. If the skein twists on itself more than two complete rotations, then the fabric is likely to bias. If it's less than two full rotations, I might see some biasing in the stitches -- one leg upright, the other at an angle, on the knit-face of the fabric -- but I won't see any in the fabric. There are knitting methods you can use to overcome bias, as well -- garter stitch and seed stitch are less likely to bias. My crochet friend tells me she doesn't see any biasing in her crocheted fabric, often made with her own handspun, moderately high twist singles.

Other finishing techniques include steaming a stretched-out skein, simmering a skein (often done with cotton), and, I suppose, ironing a skein -- though I haven't tried that one. Commercial mills have much higher temperatures and more specialized equipment than the home spinner, I am curious to know how they create the calm singles that are Malabrigo laceweight, for example -- if you try a warm-water folded-back length of that yarn, it barely twists on itself at all. But the fibers are not aligned. I've tried fulling, and kettle steaming, but so far have not managed to produce a similar skein of yarn despite copying fiber and twist amount. The trick is in the finishing -- so there's yet another way to finish a yarn that I have not yet uncovered.

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The Bellwether is having holiday sale -- 15% off select items through the end of 2009. Shop early for the best selection, and thanks! for supporting Ask The Bellwether!

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Related posts on finishing yarn:
How do you set the twist in handspun cotton?
What makes my handspun yarn bloom?
How do you steam block handspun yarn?
What do I do with my very first full spindle?
Do you set the twist in handspun singles before you ply?
How do I ply set singles?
Is my yarn's twist set when I ply it?
Why do you wash the finished skein in warm or hot water?
How do you set the twist in singles yarn?

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© 6 November 2009 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/

How much ply twist is "balanced"?

By Amelia © March 30, 2026

Typically we tell new spinners to seek balance in their plied yarn ... see How Much Twist do I Need When I Ply? for that advice. If you let singles rest, the twist in the single is still there, but dormant. Don't wake it up before plying! Instead, keep a fresh ply-back from when the singles were spun to guide plying twist and realize that the dormant twist will show up when you wet-finish your skein after plying.

However, I would really like more specific advice. Some authors talk about counting treadles - clearly not spindle spinners!

What follows is from an old Ravelry post of mine:

"Mabel Ross’s theory, in Essentials of Yarn Design, is that ply twist is 2/3 singles’ twist. So, your final yarn has 8 TPI [twists per inch] in the 2-ply and each single has 4 TPI remaining in it. But why would two, skinnier, 4 TPI singles “balance” with an 8 TPI 2-ply? I know, 4 + 4 = 8, but does that hold true here, isn’t it more like 4 and 4 in parallel, not in series, pulling against 8? Clearly I’m thinking about this too hard, muddying my ability to understand what I’ve always taken as fact in my desire to get at its underpinnings.

"Alden Amos’s theory, in The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning, states that ply twist is 1/2 singles’ twist. I read that 10 times last night trying to figure out what he meant. Does he mean, once it’s plied, that your 2.5 TPI 2-ply has singles that each still contain 5 TPI? or that your 2.5 TPI 2-ply has singles that when not plied were 5 TPI? And do either of those things match up to Mabel Ross’s statements?

"Anne Fields (Spinning Wool: Beyond the Basics) quotes Mabel Ross, so she’s taking her numbers as a given. And Peter Teal (Wool Combing and Spinning, the original version) doesn’t really discuss balanced yarn, since he wants to be aware of what the twist is in his singles, and he wants there to be a certain amount, so he discusses plying twist in those terms."

End of quote

Well, that didn't really help. Especially the TPI of the single after plying - I want to know how much twist to put in the single and then how much twist I put in the ply.

These days, I do still use the freshly spun ply-back sample as a sample to match to when plying. And rather than TPI, I use twist angle to let me know what type of yarn I'm spinning. Medium knitting yarn wants a 25° angle of twist while durable sock yarn wants a 35-38° angle of twist. This is true no matter what my yarn diameter (WPI, wraps per inch) is.

If I don't have a sample, I can make one by folding a length in half and knotting the ends, being careful not to let any twist come out. Put it in warm water and the dormant twist wriggles the sample up to show what balance is in the 2-ply.

If I have no access to warm water, I can visually inspect the plying. When balanced, the fibers in the singles area straight, and the plied yarn is at maximum diameter. Before it's balanced, the singles are compressed and after the balance point, the plied yarn compresses.

You can find many posts on this blog about balance in plying if you'd like to dive into the topic further.

I may never get to the bottom of the singles-vs-plied twist question - but perhaps someone else will rig up an Alden Amos-style twist counter and then we'll all know. Will it be you?

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© March 30, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

Why should I care about twist?

By Amelia © July 15, 2016

My nephew is visiting, and amidst my studio spring cleaning, I found a NIB Duncan butterfly yo-yo, so of course I offered it to him. He knew exactly what it was and proceeded to rip open the package and give it a spin.

Only to be sadly disappointed because it has been sitting on the shelf for too long. The string's twist had re-formed itself, and so when spun, the string will unwind, but then the yo-yo spins at the end of the string rather than rewinding back up.

A yo-yo string looks like a very tight 2-ply but is actually a folded cable — a 3-yard length of regular cotton string is taken, twist is added (a lot of twist!), and then it is folded on itself so that it cable-plies, with a fold at one end. That fold is really important, as it is then opened up a little and the yo-yo's middle pole is put there. That's right, your standard yo-yo is operating on a specially twisted piece of string. Each one has to be made for the yo-yo, since each one has to have that fold.

But any yarn left wrapped tightly on something long enough will lose its twist, and that's what's happened to this yo-yo string. The center portion no longer wants to be twisted on itself, so the yo-yo doesn't try to wrap itself up again once it reaches the end of its string on the unwind.

I plan to recuperate this yo-yo string the same way I wake up dormant twist in singles after plying: warm water. I want to see what it takes: warm water, or hot water, or even possibly steam.

Twist is always important to me in my spinning, and this little yo-yo string exhibits exactly what I caution new students about: dormant twist. When singles sit on your bobbin or spindle for even a weekend, the plying has to take that into account. You can use warm water to figure out what a balanced ply looks like, and then ply your yarn to match that sample. I talk about this further on several posts on this blog.

And, if that doesn't work, then I will make a new yo-yo string from a cone of non-mercerized 10/2 weaving cotton. After all, there's gotta be a spindle or wheel around here somewhere ...

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© July 15, 2016 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

Spinner's Alphabet: What Begins with O? Overplied!

By Amelia © August 24, 2026

3-ply sock yarn

O

is for overplied yarn. I usually overply my yarn when I'm spinning for socks, and then rough finish it, which lightly felts the strands so that it will behave like balanced yarn in the knitting. It's doubly durable from the active surface twist and the light felting.

Another situation that calls for overplying is when you are constructing a more-than-two-step yarn such as a cable. Here's a recipe for making a cabled yarn:

1. Divide your fiber into 4 equal parts
2. Spin each part into Z twist singles on its own bobbin. You get to decide how much twist you want - ply it back on itself and if you like it, use that amount throughout. So you can have a puffy 2-ply or a tight 2-ply (that's coming next).
3. Ply two bobbins together with S twist into a balanced 2-ply yarn. If at all possible, do this step, let the yarn rest, then move on to the next step. Lots of folks (myself included) don't do that - we do both steps in one pass. I want to experiment more with separating the steps, letting this balanced 2-ply sit on the bobbin for a while to rest so it acts balanced - i.e. the plying twist becomes effectively as dormant as the singles twist became before plying happened. You now have 2 bobbins of 2-ply.
4. Overply the 2 bobbins, i.e. add more plying (S) twist. How much? So that the ply-back looks like grains of rice / strings of pearls. This is most obvious with 4 different colors in play, so that's a good learning tactic, frankly. I'd note most of my singles tend to be fairly strong twist as I'm doing this for socks, so my ply-back is also fairly strong feeling. I usually overply until the yarn compresses down to look like a single strand again, i.e. not much visible curving of the two strands around each other. It's a good idea to let these bobbins rest a few days so that extra twist can go dormant and not drive you crazy when you do the next step... just saying...
5. 
   Now cable-ply: take the 2 bobbins and ply them on each other in the Z direction until they are balanced. What's balanced? so they match the ply-backs you made in the previous step. That grains-of-rice look.

Whew! If it all works out the final skein washes up balanced. To be frank, it is a strong twist typically. If you met the grains of rice look but it's acting over- or under-plied after wet finishing, rough finish it by lightly fulling the yarn. I hope that's R! If not, see this post: When do you set the twist?. That will lock it all in place and make it act balanced.

A note on direction - the usual final twist direction of commercial yarns is S. If you want that, then spin the singles S, ply Z, and cable-ply S. There you go, final twist direction S. I will note, spinning singles S feels odd, as our hands get so used to feeling that Z spiral as they draft. Stick with it, and S singles will feel natural as well.

The great part of making a 3-ply sock yarn is that a cable from the leftover singles will have the same final diameter as the 3-ply yarn due to the extra compression it has. Great for heels and toes! A lovely friend told me that one day and it has proven itself true at my wheel as well.

Other fun O's: Optim (stretched merino, so soft!), Opposing Ply (another great yarn structure!), Ombre (shifting from one color to another over a long distance/in a single skein).

What's your spinning O? Have you overplied on purpose? Let me know in the comments.

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© August 24, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

How do I finish my skein?

By Amelia © October 12, 2010

I find myself once again with a nice group of local learning-to-spinners, this time in Port Angeles actually on the college campus. Very fun! We had our first class last week, and I left them with notes on how to finish a skein. On reviewing my blog, I found these weren't clearly spelled out in any of the posts, though I've gone on about the variety of finishing we do on our skeins before, so here are my basic skein washing notes for your edification.

"The skein isn't done until it's washed" ... sometimes we call this wash setting the twist, but really what it is doing is waking up any dormant twist in the single so that the plying twist can balance against it.

You start with an already spun and plied skein, with suitable ties on the skein (at least 3 for an arm-wound skein, more for longer skeins).

1. Open up (as in, untwist) your rolled-up and twisted-on-itself skein.

2. Fill a sink with warm water and a squirt of dish soap, shampoo, or
wool wash (i.e. Eucalan, SOAK or similar; NOT Woolite)

3. Place your skein in the sink. You can hold it under until it stays
submerged if you like, but don't move it around.

4. Let it soak 10-20 minutes.

5. Lift out the skein and squeeze the soapy water out of it.

6. Empty the sink.

7. Fill the sink with just water, the same temperature as before.

8. Place your skein in the sink. You can hold it under until it stays
submerged if you like, but don't move it around.

9. Let it rinse-soak for 10-20 minutes.

10. Lift out the skein and squeeze the water out of it. Empty the sink.

11. Roll the skein up in a towel and press down on the rolled-up
skein-and-towel to get more water out

12. Unroll the towel-and-skein and hang the skein over a rail
somewhere (like your shower) to dry

There you have it.

The skeins above were from a variety of spinning experiments, both mine and my daughter's.

I would note that I don't mix dyed skeins in my finishing baths -- one red skein once leached onto an undyed white, leading to an unfortunate pinkness that dogged that skein until I found a nice forest green for it. Pink really wasn't its color!

It's a lovely skein of CVM wool, and is listed in By Our Hands on Etsy and TheBellwether.com.

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Past posts discussing finishing a skein:

When do you set the twist?

How do you make a good looking 2-ply yarn?

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© October 12, 2010 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/blog