There are many butterflies in my life right now. Butterflies of weft yarn for weaving, and now butterflies of spun yarn while spinning. I haven’t seen the living kind yet, and it will be interesting to see what the deep freeze did to our insect population.

I think this is another advancement in my spinning. Before, I didn’t understand the why of the butterfly. I would spun an arm length, then wrap it up on my spindle. I was able to keep tension on the yarn the whole time to keep it from kinking. The butterfly comes in when you are able to spin more than an arm length. As the spindle nears the ground, and my hand is high in the air, wrapping the yarn around two fingers takes up the extra length under tension and allows me to wrap more around the spindle without troublesome twists.

So I finished my single ply over two walks, then was left with a question: can I walk and ply? With the double ended cop method I can! Not really surprising; it is easier to do a two ply than spin a single. There is no drafting and less dropping (yup, I’ve dropped the drop spindle a couple times on the walk!) The cop fits well in my left hand, and I keep one finger between the strands to keep the twist from running down into the wad of yarn. I draw out an arm length of two strands, then flick the spindle clockwise to ply. When the twist is where I want it, I wrap the yarn around the spindle, do a half hitch at the top, and go again.

I do need to be careful with my hand position. I tend to let the spindle hang from my longest finger because it is convenient. I have to consciously add some fingers, since walking through the neighborhood with my middle finger raised high sends the wrong message. Although as I approach the middle of the yarn, it does get a bit knotty.

I can walk and spin! I’m beyond excited. I took my merino wool roving and my bottom whorl drop spindle and headed off through the neighborhood. For fiber management, I wrapped the roving around my wrist, which works really well. I really expected the spindle to swing, but it stays mostly straight down, and I didn’t kick it even once. The psychology also worked, because I walked longer than I would have without spinning.

One of my neighbors who was also out walking commented that from a distance it just looks like I’m waving my hands in the air. My fiber is rather road colored!