I say “standing” because it will take more practice before I can walk and chain ply. Chain plying is a way to make a three-ply yarn from one single, much like making a foundation chain in crochet with very long loops. If my single ply is supported I like to make loops as long as my arms can reach, but if I’m holding the source yarn in one hand and the spindle in the other, I have to shorten the loops to maybe half an arm span. And it takes more concentration to keep the three strands under tension and unkinked, so standing (with an occasional ball kick) is about all I can currently manage.

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!

So many esoteric terms in spinning! (Here is a funny article from Spin-off magazine on hand spinning terms.) In this case, plying is spinning singles together to make a thicker stronger yarn. A cop is the yarn wound upon a spindle. I took the end from the inside and the outside of the cop and plied them together, essentially working from both ends of the single.

I’m still working on consistency, but it is the process I enjoy. It is meditative.