@Julia @knittingsquirrel I'm interested too, because I tend to let my singles on the bobbins a bit but if it's for plying, I'll ply them right away and the, I skein and soak as soon as it's done.

@knittingsquirrel If you let the singles sit and rest, the twist will kind-of "settle" but as soon as the fibre get's wet again, the twist gets alive again.

You can actually make it harder to see if your plied yarn is balanced when you let the singles sit for too long (but I do that sometimes, it's not that bad).

@knittingsquirrel If you want to spin singles yarn, you try to spin with as little twist as possible and letting the singles sit for a while before the bath makes the handling easier (because of dormant twist). But again, the energy doesn't disappear, it's still a good idea to maybe felt the singles just a little bit while giving them their bath.

@knittingsquirrel btw that's also the reason why attaching weight to your skeins while they dry is not going to help with unbalanced yarn. It's just an illusion that makes handling easier. As soon as you knit it up and the thing gets wet again, the excess twist energy will show up again and might skew your knitting. Because energy doesn't disappear, I said that already :D

So I don't do it, I want my yarn to show its true characteristics, so I know what I'm working with.

@jules ha, that's good news, so i can continue and ply right away. i also checked your great book and it didn't say anything about it, so i guess Abby Franquemont seconds you :)

@knittingsquirrel Oh great, Abby agrees
I usually can't wait to ply once I finally finished the spinning :D I've done it for years and I will continue doing it because my yarns are great 😊

Have fun!

@jules yeah same, i want to continue right away! and so will i!!

@jules aha because you need some twist for plying which you then don't, right? so as little twist as possible but enough so it holds? for non-ply yarn?

@knittingsquirrel Yes, the energy of the twist is removed completely by plying, so there is no more unused twist energy left in the balanced plied yarn.

Singles yarn is never really balanced because of the twist. But you try to put in as little as possible so you don't get yarn that's all tangled up (and makes your knitting skewed). A little felting helps with that.

@jules awww, thanks! *loves listening to you taking about fibrearts* 😍

let's see when i dare to give the single yarn project a try...

@knittingsquirrel haha *loves talking about fibrearts just as much* 😊 😍 🐿 💙

@knittingsquirrel The "removing the twist energy by plying" part is btw why you should ply with the same speed (while on a wheel) as you used for spinning. So translated into spindles: ply it by turning the spindle just as fast / long as you did while spinning, just in the opposite direction.

Many people put in too little energy while plying and end up with a loose yarn where the singles still carry too much energy. You can repair something like that by just plying it again though!

@jules last/first time i plyed, i checked regularly that the yarn doesn't kink up on itself anymore. i guess that's a measuring device for the "twist energy", isn't it?

@knittingsquirrel Well, yes and no. When the plied yarn does that, you put in too much plying twist so it's "over-plied" you could say.

"Under-plied" yarn is sometimes harder to detect, if it's not an extreme. Especially when you let the twist "settle" for a long time. It seems balanced but it isn't.

You can look closely at your plied yarn. The fibre of the two parts should not be twisted on its own anymore, and both parts should be snuggled together :D

@knittingsquirrel But I want to add: perfectly balanced yarn is a nice thing, but it also comes with time and experience and not perfectly balanced yarn is totally usable and good for knitting most of the time :) It's not about perfection, but about getting a yarn you like and want to work with! 😊

@jules 😊 and getting a yarn! 😂

while we're at it: my two singles are quite a bit different in thickness, is there something to think about in regard to that?

@knittingsquirrel There is actually a name for yarn out of two singles of notably different thickness: spiral yarn It's because the thicker one kind-of spirals around the thinner one. I like it and people do it on purpose sometimes.

Just don't think about too much, ply them together and have fun :D

If in question, I would go for a bit too much plying twist than too little, in this case :)

@knittingsquirrel (Because the thinner singles usually have more twist energy trapped inside. It takes more twist to keep the fibre in a thin yarn together, than in a thick yarn. So when you ply different singles, the thicker one might look fine while the thinner one hat still a lot of twist in it. But it's okay, it's not an exact science, it's art :D)

@jules yeahhh! thank you!!! *heads of*

if you want to, check the Instagram (post or story, i forgot) of @ stephen.and.penelope there is a great example of "you need a heavy spindle for thicker yarn". i had a nice aha moment earlier this day :D

@knittingsquirrel I just saw an example of underplied yarn: https://www.ravelry.com/people/CraftFidget/handspun/time-travellers-club-january-2017

see how the individual singles are all twisty and the two are not really winding around each other enough?

@jules yeah, cool thank you! yeah, i figured, if the single is not twisty anymore, the single fibres show exactly into the direction of the yarn, like parallel. but: then the kink-test doesn't work anymore, it will kink up on itself! cool, I'm glad i can detect the difference now!