I read about gimp yarn in Spin Off magazine, and thought it would be good to practice making different thicknesses of yarn. Gimp yarn uses a thin single and a thicker single plied to make a bumpy looking yarn.

I transferred the singles from my spindle to a niddy noddy, rinsed them to set the twist, then let them dry before winding them into cakes. I did all this rather than plying from cops because I wanted a smooth center pull for plying. To ply, I tucked the yarn cakes into an arm bag that I made long ago for carrying crochet yarn. They fit perfectly! And it is easy to feed the two singles from the bag and ply. I have also discovered that it is easier to get my spindle spinning counterclockwise if I flick the bottom instead of the top.

My singles don’t have an extreme difference in size, but it was enough to get the effect (which reminds me of my grandma’s rickrack trim).