Plying

I finished the Tour de Fleece single ply yarn the week after the race ended. I got around to plying it a week later into 386 yards of 3 ply yarn. What I didn't like was that the yarn was not plied with the same amount of twist as the first skein I finished in June. So I decided to add more twist by running it through the wheel again. I put the skein on the swift attached to a dining chair seat. It took a little longer than I thought, but Season 10 of Food Network Star kept me entertained. I just love the ability to binge watch shows on streaming television.

 

I ended up with 7 yards less but with the same twist as the first skein. With the two skeins I now have a total of 757yds/692m to play with. I wrapped the yarn with the original fiber label and wrote my yardage notes on it. The colors blended more than I had originally intended. I still like the finished yarn a lot. The fuchsia dominates the yarn. Which is nice, but I have lots of yarn in this colorway. Of course I do. It's in the red family and that's my favorite color!

I had some singles yarn left over on 2 bobbins. So I decided to ply that using Navajo chain ply method. It's a tiny skein but the colors came out more like what I had originally imagined this fiber to look like.

Since I was on a twist fixing mode, I dug out another skein of yarn that had been bugging me for a while.

This skein of 3 ply yarn was spun by a friend of mine. I love the subdued colors (it's not red!) but I always thought the ply twist was a little loosey goosey.

Since I had the swift set up already I put the skein on it and ran the yarn through the wheel again. I lost 4 yards in the new twist but now the skein looks great. Even the colors look a little more defined to me and I was dreaming of other yarns I could combined it with to knit up something fabulous.