How can I get more on my spindle?

By Amelia © March 2, 2026; originally written October 9, 2012

Preface (in 2026): I have been blogging again, did you notice? and in reviewing the blog's back stage I found many unpublished drafts. This is one. It is a topic I have written about on the blog over the years, but this gives yet another view on the topic. And now on to the Amelia of 2012...

Getting more yarn on your spindle requires great skill. Luckily, it is a skill we all possess: recognize natural beauty. A balanced spindle-full of yarn looks nice. It's naturally appealing in its tidiness, order, and symmetry.

Okay, I hear some of you groaning. You didn't like to tidy your room, and you still don't like housecleaning. But this isn't that. It's winding yarn on the spindle, which is a celebration. Each time you wind on, you have created a new length of yarn.

For the past year, I have lived with wood stove heat. I like being warm, so I chop wood. I have a choice I can make -- I can throw the wood in an untidy pile that falls and expands when new wood hits it,or I can stack the wood in an organized wall that leans on itself and stays put. The organized pile looks better. Beauty of the woodpile translates to compactness, keeping more wood dry, and giving easy access to wood. With summer arriving July 5th here, we've worked through several cords of alder this spring, all chopped by me. I feel quite accomplished, taking my messy piles and putting them neatly inthe woodpile for use in keeping my family warm.

Similarly, as I work through a spinning project like the merino/yak/silk blend I spun up at Black Sheep Gathering, I feel quite accomplished as I get 1 ounce, 1.5 ounces, and then the full 2 ounces on my top-whorl spindle with no appreciable wobble.

How far can you take this? The most I've put on a spindle is 4 ounces of singles (picture in this post) and 4 ounces of plied yarn. I've seen flickr entries with 7 ounces of singles on a spindle, and Andean womens' spindles seem quite a bit fuller than my 4-ouncers.

Practical advice to achieve beauty in your spindle-full:

Wind on tightly, maintaining tension between the newly formed yarn andthe yarn already on the spindle shaft. If you wind on in a closely arranged series of rounds on the shaft, every once in a while switch over to an X-wind on to hold down the rounds and keep the rows from collapsing into each other. You can look for artistry in your cop like the Turkish spindle windings that appear on flickr, or you can strive for a balanced shape and surface of the yarn on the spindle without laying bands of color on the spindle shaft.

I like to put 2 ounces on spindles as singles, and then ply two of them together into a 4-ounce spindle-full. If I'm spinning thinner, I mayput less on the spindle. Consider the final spindle weight. I spin fine yarn on a 1/2-ounce spindle, and I don't want it to get much over an ounce in total weight, so I only put 1/2 ounce on it. I spin thicker yarns (DK singles and thicker) on a 1.5-ounce spindle; after there's an ounce on it, it's 2.5 ounces, which starts to feel heavy. At 3.5 ounces it's heavy enough that I'm done, even if the spindle isn't wobbling.

You may be able to tolerate a heavier spindle - or you may want to stop at a lighter final weight. It's a matter of preference, part ofyour spinning personality.

Plying goes so quickly that I don't mind doubling two 2-ounce spindle-fulls of singles and piling on 4 ounces of plied yarn. It's satisfying to see how closely I can match the length of each half of the fiber, a bit like trying to see how few blows it takes to chop around into burnable logs for my woodstove. And it's really satisfyingto see that huge cop of yarn on the spindle!

(returning to 2026...) I have to say, all of this rings true, except I'm no longer chopping wood for a woodstove. It was a really good workout!

For more on this topic, and pictures describing much of what was described above related to spindle wind-ons, see these posts:

• How much yarn can I spin on my spindle?
• When is the spindle full?
• How do you get 4 oz. of fiber onto one spindle?
• How much yarn can you wind onto a Turkish spindle?

~~~~
© March 2, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/blog

Spinner's Alphabet: What Begins With B?

By Amelia © February 23, 2026

Betty Roberts Wheel

B

is for the Bee that is always in each Betty Roberts spinning wheel. It took me a while to find mine, but it was there. Schacht put a ladybug pin on each Ladybug spinning wheel, in a different place. Those were fun to find also!

Betty Roberts Wheels were made in Washington by Betty. She has since retired though it's my understanding that she did train an apprentice. They were lovely wheels with solid builds. Mine was a castle wheel, so somewhat transportable, but it did have significant weight.

Dodd Pocket Wheel #7

Independent wheel (spindle, charka, e-spinner) makers are treasures that we should celebrate. I do still have a Watson Martha wheel in my flock, made by Watson Sr. in Sidney, Canada, and I have a Pocket Wheel made by Doug Dodd's apprentice and now the official maker, Jon McCoy. I had had a Dodd original (#7) but decided to go with the newer improved engineer McCoy put into the wheel. That's a lovely portable wheel!

Other fun B's: Spinolution Bee, Bison fiber, Balanced yarn, Boucle

~~~~
© February 23, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/

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.

A

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.

If you want to see other posts on this blog about angora, check out these: Angora posts - note some will be about Angora goats and Mohair fiber.

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

~~~~
© 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.

~~~~
© 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.

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!

~~~~

© January 20, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/