Ask The Bellwether

Spinner's Alphabet: A

By Amelia © February 16, 2026

Follow along with me while I explore the A to Z of spinning. Today marks the letter A, a great place to start.

is for Angora - angora rabbits have lovely angora fiber (so warm!). Angora was one of the first three fibers I learned with. I had Romney, Mohair, and Angora. Angora was definitely the hardest of the three. It is a very fine fiber, very slippery, and this particular one was fairly short staple to very challenging for a beginner indeed. I managed a few yards - enough for two rounds in the hat I made from my first yarn. And when I wear that hat, I feel the warmth of the angora. It is a hollow fiber, which contributes to how warm it is.

Now that I've been a spinner for decades, I know that even 10% angora in a blend is enough to add its warmth and let me feel its amazing softness. It is delightful blended with merino. One of the most amazing blends I've spun was angora, bleached yak, and cashmere - that spun into such a delightfully fine single that I made a 4-ply to bring it back to a sport-to-DK-weight yarn. Lovely, lovely blend. The fibers all contribute to its lovely halo. I have not yet come across a pattern worthy of the yarn, but perhaps a nice shawlette as there is only an ounce of it.

There are several varieties of Angora rabbits. English and French Angoras have lovely natural color but can have shorter staple. German Angoras are white, but have lovely long staple. Then there are Jersey Woolys, which are small rabbits with Angora fiber. I tend to find the nicest fiber at wool shows from the rabbit wranglers themselves, though you can also find white Angora combed top commercially. From the shepherd it is usually still in a cloud or occasionally a batt. Avoid compressing this or storing it in plastic, as it will matt and felt if not given room to breathe and a dry environment.

Other fun A's:

Art yarn - the county fair judge often says, that it is architecture, planning, and follow-through that define an art yarn

Angora goats - their fiber is called Mohair, confusing, I know! and is quite different from Angora fiber from rabbits.

I invite you to add more A's in the comments - just list your A-word-related-to-spinning or give a little bit more about it. Perhaps take this up on your own blog and post a link to it in the comments. All are welcome.

Be sure to check back in a week or two for B!

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© February 16, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

How do you make joins when plying?

By Amelia © February 9, 2026

Have you ever had yarn drift apart when plying? That can happen when you hit a slightly thicker part with less twist in it, and the plying twist becomes enough to undo that part. It slips apart and you realize you no longer have 2 strands in your hands (or, one less strand if you are doing a higher ply). Uh-oh.

Or, have you had yarn snap and break when plying? This can happen if the tension on the bobbin combines with the yarn on the bobbin having uneven or irregular winding to increase tension enough for it to snap the yarn. It breaks apart quickly and you realize you no longer have 2 strands in your hands. Uh-oh indeed.

Now you have two issues.

First, you have lost twist out of the two broken ends. So you need to somehow add twist. I do this by capturing one end - usually the one involved in plying, coming from the wheel or spindle first - and twirling it in my fingers to add back in the twist that was lost. I can do a quick, short ply-back to verify the level of twist has returned, and then I guard that end by keeping it pinched so it will not lose twist again. We will call this the "plying end".

Now, while still holding that first end, I rescue the loose end on the bobbin or ball of singles (or spindle of singles if you are using a spindle kate) and perform the same twist-adding operation to it. Yes, this is tricky. Yes, you will wish you could sprout a third hand. But with time, or extra clips to hold things, you will manage this. Once you have twist in it, you also need to guard that end with a solid pinch. We will call this the "singles end".

Second, now you need to reconnect them in the yarn. This is not a knot, but "simply" laying them next to each other without losing twist out of the ends. While pinching both of those ends, you will overlap them by about two inches and hold them against the other single involved in the plying. Note, I'm assuming a simple 2-ply here, but this also works for more. You can now pinch all three strands at two places - the singles end and the plying end. Note, the singles end is closer to the wheel/spindle and the plying end is closer to the singles' sources.

Once you have them all secure, add twist to the plied yarn and once it's built up a little bit, let it enter the area of the plying join where the two broken ends are held next to each other. Yes, for a short length of your yarn, you will have a 3-ply instead of a 2-ply. But it will be very hard to see in the finished yarn especially if you manage to have the two ends held well in the plying.

When you wet-finish the yarn, reskein it once it dries and look over the skein for any popped-out ends of plying joins. If you don't find any, give yourself a pat on the back. If you do find some, you can try opening up the ply, pushing the end into the center, and letting it reply on itself. Or, you can carefully take small embroidery scissors and trim off the bit that's sticking out. I've used both techniques.

Weavers may recognize this join - when you reach the end of yarn in your current shuttle, you typically lay the beginning of the next shuttle full of yarn against the end of the last shuttle's yarn to do a "weft join". Well, it's not called that by any weaver I've met, it's just how to continue weaving between shuttles.

So there you have it - no knots, no fancy technique, it's about ensuring the broken ends have the right twist in them to match your yarn, and then you overlap the two ends within the plied yarn. Hard to spot in your finished skein for most yarns.

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© February 9, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

Keeping Leaders Straight

By Amelia © January 20, 2026

If you spin on a wheel or e-spinner, you put leaders on your bobbins. I have a great post on a no-fail leader here: How do you make a leader on your bobbin?

In this image is a bobbin with its ends removed - I do enjoy flat-pack bobbins! You might notice, the red acrylic yarn used in the previous post is not present. I am happy to report that it is all used up - I now work through balls of thrifted #10 crochet cotton for making leaders. You may also notice the leader is twisting on itself due to repeated use.

I mentioned in that previous post, replacing the leader when the twist gets too annoying. But that's only one possibility. Here are things you can do when twist builds up in the leader:

You can use the leader for plying to twist it the other way, but you will never ply as much as you spin singles, so that's not going to undo all the singles twist you added to your leaders.
You could remove the leader and steam out the twist — since it was not curling on itself initially, this will wake up the balance in the leader and return it to balance. Just be careful not to steam your hand in the process! I've done this when a boiling kettle was handy, dangling the leader from a metal hangar or holding it with tongs.
You could replace the leader when it gets too curly for your liking. It's going to have to be replaced anyway, so this seems reasonable and was partly how I got through all that red acrylic I used for years as my leader.
Or, leaning into your personal level of thriftiness, you could flatten the leader around the bobbin and wind it tight around it, tucking the end under, so that it self-resets into balance again. That way you don't need to replace it until it snaps — though I have at least one leader with multiple knots in it, as my personal level of thriftiness is up there.

bobbin with the leader flatly wrapped around and the end tucked under the previous rounds

Here's another fun bobbin-related read, a question that comes up now and again in beginning spinning classes: How many bobbins do I need?

What's your solution to the built-up semi-permanent twist in your leaders?

p.s. you can find me teaching online through HansenCrafts - a wide variety of e-spinner topics, offered around show and holiday seasons as well as at fiber shows across the US. All makes of e-spinner are welcome!

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2-Ply and 3-Ply: By the Numbers

By Amelia © January 1, 2026

When teaching plying I usually pass along a few facts about 2-ply vs. 3-ply:

From the same single, the 3-ply will be thicker than the 2-ply — yeah, this one is pretty obvious.
From the same single, the balanced 3-ply will have a steeper twist-angle than the balanced 2-ply — less obvious, but consider that 3 singles are contributing twist in the 3-ply, but only 2 singles contribute in the 2-ply.
From the same single, to the same finished weight, you will get less finished yards in the 3-ply than in the 2-ply — also fairly obvious, since you are taking 3 at a time rather than 2 at a time.

Recently, I got to do a little exercise in 3-ply vs. 2-ply as I was preparing singles for my class Spindles Can Ply! at SOAR and SAFF this year. I had extra color kits from another class so I used them to play some color games with known weights of fiber — I had a ½ ounce ball of each color. Now, do note, I was chain plying one of the balls of singles — it's a structural 3-ply for the purposes of our comparison.

Here are the turtles, all spun up:

In pairs, left-to-right these are:

3-ply solid color
2-ply two solid colors — often called "barberpole"
3-ply keeping color changes clean (remember, it's a chain ply)
2-ply with fractal plying — one single changes color faster than the other
3-ply candystripe single — two colors spun side-by-side into the single, a 3-ply marl
2-ply candystripe singles — a 2-ply marl
3-ply keeping color changes fairly clean
2-ply with the same color orders — I usually call this "spinning to the grist" — if spun the same, all color changes are clean; that almost never happens so there is heathering as colors change at different times

Whew! When I spun the singles, I mostly tried to keep the diameter the same in the "pairing" of singles for 3-ply and 2-ply. That way I only had to think about one goal while spinning the singles for both. I tried to spin the first lot, the solid colors, thicker; and all the others just aimed for a comfortable default diameter for the NZ corriedale — the fiber I was spinning.

Each ball of singles was ½ ounce, so I had ½ ounce balls of 3-ply and 1 ounce balls of 2-ply.

To compare apples to apples for finished yards, I'm taking half the measured yards of the 2-ply, or a ½ ounce of it, as shown in the table.

Colors	½ ounce 3-ply	½ ounce 2-ply	ratio 3:2
greens	12	19	63%
reds/camel	26	32	81%
green/lime/yellow	22	30	73%
blue/yellow	24	37	65%

As you can see, there is a fair range here in comparing, 63% to 81%. But it does show, even with these small ½ ounce samples that the 3-ply (chain ply in this case) will result in shorter skeins from the same / a similar single than the 2-ply. The average was 70%, or to put it another way, 30% shorter.

If you consider how folding shortens things, take 12 inches as a starting point. Folded in 2, it would be 6 inches; folded into thirds it would be 4 inches, or 67% the length of the 2-fold. So we can see that plying is a bit like folding. Why doesn't it match?

Some of that is due to the imperfection in the singles — I definitely was not aiming for perfect singles so there is some variability in the yarn diameter. These are fairly moderate twist singles, and we would expect that to impact the finished length as well. It's only too bad I didn't record the length of the singles as well — there's always next time! Then there is the fact that the 3-ply would have a steeper twist angle than the 2-ply, which means we'd expect it to be even shorter than the folded paper result. We do see that in 2 of the 4 samples — again, I'd put this down to the spinner perhaps being less consistent overall. I did ply to make balanced yarns, and succeeded, as all were wet-finished and shown to be balanced yarns.

What to do with this information? Well, now I have a ballpark number: 3-ply from the same amount and thickness of single as a 2-ply will be about 70% the 2-ply's yardage. Should I collect more data? Sure. Will I? probably not.

Speaking of numbers, I once analyzed a table in Mabel Ross's book Yarn Design for Hand Spinners. This book is so important to me I bought two copies when I realized I'd sold mine in a destash. The table held data about the WPI in singles, 2-ply, and 3-ply yarns. Her numbers were data points presented in the table. I ran ratios and averages, and what that table told me was that I can ballpark finished yarn diameter vs. singles like so:

A 2-ply is about 1.5 times the WPI of its single.
A 3-ply is about 2 times the WPI of its single.

Mabel Ross was assuming the same single for both singles in the plying, but I would hazard to guess you could take the average WPI and use this calculation for a ballpark finished yarn diameter. As with most estimates about spinning, the fiber used, the amount of twist used, and the style of finishing of the yarn can all impact the WPI of the result and thus be above or below these ballpark numbers.

I'm curious to know what ballpark numbers you tend to use in your spinning; tell me in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

How Many Arms Does a Turkish Spindle Need?

By Amelia © December 16, 2025

Your most typical truly Turkish spindle shaped spindle has four arms - made up of two pieces where one goes through a hole in the other, and the combination of the hole in one arm and the shaft holds the two pieces in place. The length and shape of shaft, the length and thickness of the arms, and how high up the shaft the arms sit all play a role in how well that spindle spins, in what ways it can be spun, and how much yarn it can hold. But that's a separate post.

You see, I was looking over my spindle collection and realized I have many Turkish-style spindles that don't have 4 arms, or that are not truly Turkish-spindle shaped with their 4 arms. So from least to most, here you go:

This etsy acquisition from MuddyDuckWorkshop is a Basque spindle called a Txoatile spindle. It is similar to some spindles shown in Betty Hochberg's handspindles booklet. Good luck winding on - well, some folks have definitely done some work on finding ways to wind on that are interesting (search on YouTube), but generally you are not going to take a cop off of this by removing the pieces. Now there are many other makers on Etsy as well as Muddy Duck Workshop, but the one I received from them was well made and is fun to pull out and spin.
This is my newest Turkish-esque spindle, I saw one at SOAR this year and had to pursue, because - 3 arms? Yes, 3 arms! It does basically collapse when you pull the shaft out on it empty, and likely the arms come out easily when there's a cop on them. It is sold through SpinSpul; getting one in the US is a little tricky, but that may no longer be the case by the time you read this. I love getting packets from overseas, so definitely a fun one.

We already did the traditional Turkish style, but there are interesting alternatives; I've seen several makers who put the arms one above the other, not intersecting. My favorite is my Spin Dizzy (on the left) (no longer made), though Peace Fleece sold a "Russian" spindle that was this style of Turkish, Majacraft did this with their multi-weight Turkish-style spindle, and the Katrinkles multi-weight Turkish-style spindle with one arm above the other rather than intersecting. The multi-weight Turkish-style spindles give you several sets of arms that all fit on the same shaft so you can pick the arms you want to get the spindle weight you desire. See Which Spindle Spins The Best for why you might want different weights of spindles, because that is not this blog post.
Another interesting alternative was made by Malcolm Fielding of Australia (in the middle), his Turkish-style spindle had one arm resting in a cut-out on top of the other arm. So the thinner shaft didn't go through the thicker shaft, but instead rested in a cut-out on top of the thicker shaft. Beautifully made, as all Fielding spindles are, though he has retired. His apprentice does good work and may get to these spindles at some point as he expands his repertoire.
The third 4-arm alternative is the Jenkins Woodworking Aegean-style spindle (on the right), where there is a stopper on the thinner arm so it goes through the thicker arm but cannot go all the way through due to a thicker edge placed so the thinner arm stops at the perfect position. Like all Jenkins Woodworking spindles, this is a lovely spindle with excellent dynamics. Wanda did post a YouTube video showing a different wind-on for this spindle, it is a good wind-on for slippery fibers such as silk as well, so worth a look. And often the arms are decorated as well, a bonus!
Then there is also the 6-arm spindle by Jenkins Woodworking. It was posed to him as a challenge and he met the brief excellently. He made the Merlin and the Weaver, a smaller one. These are lovely spinners. They have two thin arms and one thick arm with two channels cut through it to keep the thin arms at the right angles. The main trick was deciding how to wind on - over-2/under-1 isn't going to directly work. My solution was to treat the 2 thin arms as a single arm, then I could do over-2/under-1. Others have adopted an over-3/under-1 approach.
And last, though perhaps it's a stretch, is the 8-arm Turkish-style spindle that I usually refer to as a pencil Turkish, the one I use in my beginner classes which has 4 pencils, and every pair of arms is rubber-banded together. I do make a shaped shaft for it out of 1/4-inch dowel to give it better dynamics. See How Do You Make A Turkish Spindle for information on this.

That's it in my collection - if you've run across a one-arm or five-arm Turkish spindle, let me know! There's room for it to grow.

References:
Muddy Duck
SpinSpul
Jenkins Woodworking
Malcolm Fielding

PS yes, there are quite a few Turkish spindle makers these days. In addition to Jenkins who are hands-down the best, here are other current makers I enjoy:
Snyder Spindles
IST Crafts
Turtlemade

PPS I agree, there are other multi-arm spindles such as the Balkan spindle and the Trindle Spindle. The Balkan has a fixed piece with what looks like 4 arms, but you don't wind onto them since it is a single piece. And the Trindle has a variety of arm options - however, you don't wind onto the arms as they are very thin with shaped weights at the ends of the arms. I've chosen to draw the line and not include them, though they are interesting spindles in their own right.