Plying is not spinning. Spinning is drafting fibers and inserting twist with the end product being a single strand of yarn that will have active twist. Plying is twisting two or more strands of single yarn together without drafting. The end product is a plied yarn, which may or may not have active twist.

The most important thing to remember about plying is that, except in the case of some novelty yarns, plying is always done with the drive wheel turning in the opposite direction from that in which it was turning when the singles were spun.

Many spinners see plying as a sort of necessary evil, something that’s boring but must be suffered through to get a yarn suitable for use in a project. This view of plying often results in yarns that are either over twisted or under twisted. Either way, sloppily plied yarns are not pleasurable to work with and the plying errors may well show up in the finished project.

In his book The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning, (Interweave Press, 2001) Mr. Amos lists the four principles of plying. They are: packaging, distance, tension, and constant motion. And they do make quite a difference in how well your yarns are plied.

So, let’s look at each of these four principles and see just what each one contributes towards a nice, even plying job.

First, let’s look at packaging. This refers to how the singles yarn is packaged for plying. Rather than spin say, 2 bobbins of singles and ply onto a third bobbin, it’s best to wind the yarn off of the bobbin it has been spun on and onto a storage bobbin. This can be one of the spare bobbins that came with your wheel or you can purchase the bobbins that weavers use on spool racks. I prefer using spinning wheel bobbins so that I can tension the bobbins on the kate. Making a nice package for plying is easy to do. Simply take the single yarn out of the orifice and off the flyer hooks, tie down one flyer arm, set your spinning wheel tension so the yarn feeds off easily but yet under some tension and wind it onto a second bobbin. A weaver’s bobbin winder works well for this. What this does is make a nice evenly wound, evenly tensioned package of yarn for plying and the singles will feed evenly coming off of the kate.

Second is tension. This simply means to keep your yarns under tension while plying. A tensioned kate is a must for good plying as it prevents the yarn winding off the bobbins from feeding too fast and kinking up and it puts a stop to backspin.

Thirdly, distance. Twist will even itself out over the length of the singles yarn between the kate and your hands. The greater the distance between these two points, the more the twist has a chance to equalize. So position your kate as far away from your wheel as possible but be sure to take pets, kids, and significant others and their possible movements into account when you figure this distance.

The last principle is constant motion. Constant motion keeps every thing under constant even tension and prevents the singles from trying to self- ply back on them selves creating snarls which you have to stop and sort out as you ply.

Putting these principles into practice will help you achieve a nicely plied yarn.