Next step, plying

On June 30th I started spinning 12 oz of a BFL/silk blend dyed by Natural Obsessions. I loved this fiber and took my time spinning it on my Aura. But all good things end, and today I spun the last of the single. So the next step is plying.

This color way has long stretches of gold and blue with the intermingled green in between. Instead of splitting the braid in the middle, I did a longways split down the whole braid. I could lay the two halves side by side and they matched.

And that is how I spun each half, starting at the same end, not pre drafting but spinning from the braid half just as it was. Each half went on a bobbin.

But the start of the single was buried deep in the bobbin, and I felt I would get my best chance of long color stretches meeting if I started at the front. So I decided to wind the singles into balls and putting the start of the colors on the outside of the balls, ply from those.

I could only have done this with two good tools. One, a lazy Kate that had a tensioning string. And second, a jumbo ball winder. Once everything was set up it went well. Amazingly, the single only broke once, especially since the jumbo winder is not all that gentle in it winding.

I will ply this on my Aura since it would be the only bobbin big enough for all this yarn. Once plied, it is going to be such a big skein of yarn, I may not even try to put it on a niddy noddy.