Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Enchanted Yarn And The Mysteries Of Twist Angle Revealed

It is done! The long awaited Greenwood Fiberworks sock roving in the Enchanted color way has been finished. I am pleased, but the yarn isn't as springy as I was hoping for sock yarn. I did some investigating on what it takes to spin better sock yarn and learned a thing or two.

I'm not sure why I believed this, but whenever I read about the angle of twist on yarn, I just assumed you held the yarn at a certain angle to the wheel when spinning it. (i.e., you spin the yarn off to one side) After reading an article on Spinning Great Sock Yarn and the additional article on Twist Angle by HJS Studio, it finally clicked: the angle of twist is literally what angle the twist appears to be in the yarn, not the angle you hold it to your spinning apparatus. Color me enlightened. The article also mentioned something about how more fiber can get used up with a higher angle of twist (more twist = more fiber used) This explained the great mystery to me on why my yardage kept ending so low compared to other people's sock yarn. The next time I spin, I will pay much more attention to the amount and resulting angle of twist I put into a yarn. I'm excited!

3 comments :

Andi G said...

Gorgeous spinning!

Maryse said...

Spinning is a huge mystery to me! But it makes sense! Your yarn is beautiful!

Alicia said...

It's quite pretty! People in my guild have told me that the secret to great sock yarn is to spin the singles with very little twist so that they barely hold together (no easy feat when spinning so fine) and then ply them with a lot of extra twist. This gives the yarn a good amount of bounce but keeps things soft, not wiry.

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