By Amelia © May 25, 2026
This post continues my review of fair judging steps when evaluating handspun skeins. As you may recall from the first post, the forms used to evaluate handspun skeins typically have these categories:
- General overall appearance.
- Preparation for exhibit — clean, properly skeined and tied, of listed yardage and/or weight, blocked if necessary.
- Suitability of fiber to yarn — amount of twist, diameter of yarn
- Technique — twist evenly executed, appropriate plying twist, diameter consistent throughout, structurally durable, yarn designs consistent, dyeing/blending consistent
- Suitability of yarn to use — direction of twist, amount of twist, diameter of yarn, handle of yarn, appropriate number of plies.
- Finished Execution – originality, creativity, complexity.
I gave an overview of the process in my earlier post, How is Handspun Yarn Judged at Fairs?. In this post we will look at the first two items, general overall appearance and preparation for exhibit. Come back for later posts as I work down the form.
First, I group the skeins into the categories that fair uses; some fairs divide by spinning tool, some by yarn structure, some by fiber content. Then I take a category and dry-run a few entries; that is, I evaluate but take no permanent notes to get a feel for that county's spinners. Once I'm warmed up, I choose a random skein in a category to start with - in fact, I might have the scribe, if I'm assigned one, hand me skeins one by one.
I take the skein, look for its information tag, and read that. Anything the spinner can tell me is useful - first off, the premium book may have requirements, but in particular any background on why they chose to spin that fiber, how they made the choices they did in spinning it, and what they might use it for is all super useful but all but the last are seldom required by the premium book. I do check for any required information; some require yardage, fiber content, intended use, and perhaps even a swatch. All of that provided information is part of general appearance. It also feeds well into the other categories on the score card.
At this point I take a look at the skein to fully evaluate the first category, general appearance. A tidily wound skein with sufficient skein ties (4 is usually enough, maybe 3 on a small skein - or the number the premium book requires). The ties must not distract from the skein - I'm embarrassed to say the first skeins I entered had thick white cotton ties (oops) but later ones would use lengths of the yarn itself, unplied to use as little of the handspun as possible in the ties. Basically, anything that does not distract me from the skein is fine. The skein should also have no odor or dirt. I do not grade on the color of the fiber as my personal preference in color choices only comes to play in assigning Judge's Choice to my favorite among all the entries.
I tend to write notes on the feedback card, generally positive and supportive with gentle correction, but avoid assigning points right away. I'll make notes all down the card and once done, assign points as appropriate for each category.
Some of the appearance items apply to the next category, preparation for exhibit. Here I focus on what the premium book required and what information was provided. Having extra information is a plus here. If yardage is provided, I have to do at least a rough check that it's in the ballpark - I will be more exact in a smaller fair but if there are a huge number of entries, I have to estimate with a partial count.
This category says "blocked if necessary" which means I do need to know how the yarn will be used to determine if blocking makes sense for that use. Knitting yarns generally wouldn't be blocked unless they were singles or were purposely over- or under-plied; weaving warp should be blocked unless the notes call out the loom used as a rigid heddle; weaving weft might be blocked if it was high-twist singles, though that twist can also be managed on the weaving bobbin; crochet yarn tends to be similar to knitting yarn. I have explored several other yarn crafts and so tend to apply what I know about them to the yarn I'm presented with - if you have one you're interested in, drop me a comment and I'll reply there. But I'd say those 3 uses are 98% of the entries I've seen over the years.
How do I know if a skein has been blocked? Generally if a skein is balanced or blocked, it hangs in an open O when it is opened and hung from your hand. So if it twists on itself more than 2 times, it likely has not been blocked. I can check the yarn itself, if it is plied, for some elasticity - wool will have a little bounce, if balanced and not blocked. I can also twist the plied yarn more and less to see if that open O is a balanced skein or not. Plied yarn is balanced at the point where the plied yarn is thickest - so if adding twist or removing twist makes it thicker, then the skein was not balanced and thus was blocked. Singles can be a little more tricky - sure, if the skein of singles hangs in an open O, it must have been blocked. But if it does not, the question is was it blocked but not to straightness. Typically then I check the twist angle in the single. Usually if the twist angle is more than 15 ° but the skein only twists a few times, it's been blocked.
One last comment about blocking - another finishing that has a similar effect is rough finishing. The only effective difference is that I can undo blocking by rewetting or resteaming the skein, but I can't unfelt it after rough finishing.
Whew! alot goes in to those two seemingly straight-forward categories. And yet, even the later categories will inform my evaluation of these two. So the form is never complete until I come to the end and review all the notes I've written on the skein, to assign points as directed by that fair's evaluation form.
I'd be curious to know how you prepare skeins for the fair, and what information you like to include with your submission, regardless of what the fair requires.
Check back in a few weeks for the next post where we will tackle evaluating technique in handspun yarn.
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© May 25, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/
