Episode146: Why I Never End Up with Leftover Singles When I Ply

In this episode, Sasha dives into the frustrating experience of leftover singles after plying, a common headache for spinners. She shares three effective strategies to ensure you never face this dilemma again. First, she explains her favorite method—working from multiple storage bobbins—which helps to minimize leftovers. She also introduces the concept of a plying bracelet, a handy technique that lets you easily ply your leftover yarn into a two-ply. Finally, for those creating three-ply yarns, she discusses chain plying as a way to use leftover singles. These three techniques will help you make the most of your singles and eliminate waste when plying.

Mentioned in this episode: Available in The Flock

• Spinning Record Cards

• Bonus Lesson: How to Make a Plying Bracelet

The Sheepspot Podcast - Episode 12: Be Kind, Rewind

You can find the script for this episode HERE.

You can comment on and discuss this episode here in The Flock, Sheepspot’s free online community for inquisitive spinners.

Here's the link to the Podcast search page and playlists. 

Episode Transcript

(00:58):
It's the bane of a spinner's existence. You finish plying your beautiful new
yarn, and you've ended up with leftover singles.
Again. You spun those singles lovingly and carefully, and they didn't even make
their way into your yarn. What do you do?
Hello there, darling sheepspotter. Welcome to episode 146 of the Sheepspot Podcast.

(01:26):
I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love.
In today's episode, I'm going to share three different strategies that you can
use to ensure that you never end up with leftover singles.
One of the questions at least one of my spin school students can be counted

(01:46):
on to ask as they work through the plying module is, how can I avoid ending
up with leftover singles?
And I get it. It's super irritating, especially when you're hoping to squeeze
as much yardage as possible out of your yarn.
But there are ways to deal with this, either by preventing it from happening

(02:10):
in the first place, or by easily making your leftovers into yarn.
So today I'm going to share three methods for dealing with this issue.
And method one is working from multiple storage bobbins.
So this first method is the one that I use most often because doing this successfully

(02:35):
ensures that I rarely end up with more than a yard or so left over.
And I just take that whatever's left over and I put it on my spinning record card.
And that's just the card that I use to keep track of my spinning projects.
You can download a PDF of these and print out your own on the flock.

(03:01):
And I will put a link to the appropriate page in the show notes.
I learned this method from Judith McKenzie, and it takes a bit of practice,
but once you get the hang of it, it will become second nature.
In fact, it's so second nature to me that I find it a little bit hard to explain,

(03:22):
but it's a great thing to be able to do, so I'm going to do my best.
This method assumes that you have rewound your singles from your wheels bobbins
onto some sort of storage bobbin. and I explain at great length why this is
a good idea in episode 12.
So if you haven't heard that episode, listen to it because it will really change

(03:46):
your spinning life for the better.
In order for this to work, you need to have at least one more storage bobbin than you have plies.
Let's assume that your singles are on four storage bobbins and you're making a two-ply yarn.
Your storage bobbins are not all going to have exactly the same amount of singles on them.

(04:08):
So you're going to start your plying with the bobbins that look like they have the most.
Ultimately, the object is to use up the singles on all four of your bobbins at about the same rate.
And you'll achieve this by always working with the bobbins that look fullest.

(04:29):
So you're plying along and eventually one of your bobbins will start to look
like it has the same amount as one of the two bobbins that you haven't used yet.
At that point, you're going to break the ply on that bobbin and start using one of the others.
If you have a bobbin that has more singles on it than the others,
you'll just keep using that one until it starts to look about equal to one of the others.

(04:55):
And then you'll break that ply and switch bobbins.
And you'll just keep doing that, using up the singles on your bobbins evenly.
Eventually, one of your four bobbins will run out.
Just continue plying evenly from the three remaining bobbins until you're almost finished.

(05:16):
Then choose two of the bobbins and keep plying until one of them runs out.
Then you'll just join the third bobbin and go on until one of those runs out,
and ideally you'll end up with just a bit on that last bobbin.
As I said, this takes some practice and some getting used to because you really

(05:37):
have to keep an eye on your bobbins as you work.
And it requires that you make a lot of joins as you ply. But that's a really
good skill to have. We'll talk more about that next week.
And this will make you better at it.
Now, if you are a newer spinner and you haven't yet settled into the hand positions

(05:59):
and the rhythm of plying, get those down first before you attempt this.
In the meantime, you can use one of the other methods to deal with your leftovers.
So let's go on to method two, making a plying bracelet.
A plying bracelet allows you to ply from a single source of yarn.

(06:21):
It's a way of wrapping your yarn around your hand that prevents it from tangling.
When you end up with leftover singles, if you're making a two-ply yarn,
you can wind the leftovers around your hand in this particular way,
and then you just join the two ends together and tie them to the rest of your yarn and ply them.

(06:43):
You'll end up with a two-ply yarn that's very similar, if not identical,
to the yarn you've already plied.
You'll get a bit of extra yardage, and you won't waste any of your precious singles.
An audio podcast is really not the best way to teach people how to make a plying
bracelet, so I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a video in which I teach how to do this.

(07:07):
You'll need to be a FLOC member to access it, but membership in the FLOC is absolutely free.
If you don't yet know how to make a plying bracelet, now is a great time to learn.
It is useful in the situation we're talking about today as a way to use up leftover
singles, but it's also a really great way to be able to make lots of small samples quickly.

(07:36):
Method number three, chain plying. If you're making a three-ply yarn and you
find yourself with leftover singles, you can chain ply the rest.
The only situation in which this won't work is if you've started with a multicolored
braid, because the colors are going to look different in the chain-plied bit

(07:57):
than they do in the rest of the yarn.
But if the fiber you're spinning is a solid color, you should end up with something usable.
It won't be identical to the rest of your yarn because a chain-plied yarn is
not a three-ply yarn, but the difference won't be very noticeable in your cloth.
And if you really need the extra yardage, well, then you really need the extra yardage.

(08:21):
So, there you have it. Two methods for using up leftover singles,
and one method for avoiding having leftover singles in the first place.
I really hope that this information is useful to you.
Let me know in the dedicated discussion thread in the flock.
You can comment on this episode and discuss it with me and other listeners.

(08:46):
The link is in the show notes, which you'll find right inside your podcast app.
Just open up the description, click the link, and you'll be taken right to the thread.
And if you don't know how to make a plying bracelet, check out my video demonstration.
There will be a link for that in the show notes as well.

(09:07):
Darling Sheepspotter, that is it for me this week. Thank you so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with a show about how to troubleshoot common issues you
may encounter when plying.
If you have trouble with one ply wrapping around the other,
or you panic when one of your singles breaks and runs out during plying,

(09:29):
or if you don't know what to do if your doorbell rings in the middle of a plying
session, you won't want to miss it.
While you're waiting, try to carve out some time to spin something.
Even if it's just 10 minutes, I'm very confident that it will do you good.