O
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:
- Divide your fiber into 4 equal parts
- 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).
- 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.
- 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...
- 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/
I was taught by my teacher to check for balance while plying. This resulted in underplied yarn, possibly because the singles rest on the bobbins before plying. Couple this with the fact that winding off the bobbin onto the niddy noddy, pulling from a centre pull ball and my knitting style can tend to remove twist depending on how they're done, meant that in some of my early projects, there's very little ply twist left in the finished stitches, they look as if they're made from two fine yarns held together! For that reason I began to deliberately overply and learn how to avoid some of those other things.
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