Navajo plying is a good method for making plied yarns that are rounder than two plied and is an excellent method for preserving colors when spinning multi-colored dyed rovings. It’s also fun and easy to do.

If you haven’t used this plying technique before, it’s best to set your wheel for it’s slowest ratio and to treadle slowly while learning the hand motions. As with making a two ply yarn, be sure to ply in the opposite direction from which you spun the yarn. It helps a lot to have a tensioned lazy kate to keep light tension on the bobbin.

Place the bobbin you will be plying from onto the kate and tension it. A horizontal kate is the best for this technique. Thread your wheel and then, with the singles yarn coming from the kate, make a loop and tie the loop to the leader. Hold the loop open with your drafting hand. There will be one strand of singles coming from the knot running to the bobbin – this strand will not be a part of the loop.

At this point, there is a loop of the singles tied to the leader and one strand of singles running from the knot to the bobbin on the kate. The loop is being held open by the back or drafting hand.

Start your wheel. Now, with your drafting hand, and while holding the loop open, use one finger as a hook and hook the strand that is coming from the bobbin through the loop. This forms a new loop. Draw enough yarn through the old loop so that the new loop will be approximately the same length as the old loop. Pinch down with the fingers of your forward hand right on the point where the new loop begins. This stops twist from going into the new loop until you’re ready for it.

When the first loop has enough twist, release the pinch, allowing twist into the next loop. Pinch at the same point again and give the starting point of the loop a little finger roll in the direction of the twist to help even it out and smooth the fibers at this point.

Have the second loop ready to go before the first loop has finished plying and have your drafting hand ready to start a new loop at the same time as twist starts entering the prior loop.

Watch point: Sometimes the area right where a new loop is formed will not ply as evenly as the 3 strands in the loop. This spot is just a tiny bit thicker than the rest of the yarn so the twist wants to jump over it. The finger roll in the direction of the twist helps overcome this problem and also smoothes the thickness out a bit. Note that the places where a new loop starts will not show in your yarn if it is well spun, nor will they show in knitted or crocheted project. Weaving is another matter and a woven project may show little “nubs” once the fabric is off loom and the fabric is fulled.

While the motions seem a bit awkward at first, Navajo plying is really easy to do and goes fast. When trying this for the first time, it helps to visualize your drafting hand as a crochet hook. What you are actually doing is making a crocheted chain by using your hand as the hook.

To maintain color separation when plying multi-colored rovings, simply make the plying loops correspond to the color changes in the singles. If you want the color changes to be exact, you may have to vary the length of the loops.