balanced singles, shmalanced shingles
June 22, 2007
did you think i could blog about fiber and not spin it? nope. apparently not. last night, while ben finished playing a video game, i spun up some of the previously mentioned bfl. should be packing, instead i’m spinning. ah well.
so, my drop spindling has brought up some questions. first of all, know that this is the most balanced single that i have ever spun and i have mixed feelings about it. really, what is the point of a balanced single? i understand that it has optimum fluffiness and no biasing – the exact right amount of twist to make your fiber stay yarn - but frankly, it’s fragile. my drop spindle falls because it gets heavy. it comes apart if i’m not overly careful when i put it on my niddy noddy. i’ve had great knits with unbalanced yarns.
the way i figure is that just as long as i don’t over spin it so much that it’s hard and scratchy and the slight bias that it might have doesn’t disrupt my knitting, who cares. if i really don’t want it to bias, i ply it. so, as you can guess, i’m done with the balanced single spinning. i’d rather have a pleasant spinning experience than have a balanced single.
any spinners out there care to enlighten me about the beauties of the balanced single? what am i missing? cause i feel like i’m missing something… and since i spread the spinning goodness, you may want to correct me now before i infect the masses :)
on a less hrmphy note, this will make a lovely little neckscarf and i adore the colorway and the fiber. and i almost forgot – here’s ben wearing a pigeonroof studios beard.
lovely colors! i cannot wait to learn to spin. can’t wait.
I am not an expert but I think you could get away with a little more twist and then just make sure you set the twist with a good soak once you wind the skein.
One of these days I want to do a project with energized singles rows of z twist alternating with rows of s twist.
i usually give this link to people having a hard time with overtwisting singles, but maybe it’ll help you out with your quest for information!
http://www.hjsstudio.com/lowtwist.html