Jane of All Trades

I have this issue when I’m spinning, and if you know how to solve it, do tell.  Let’s say I have two bobbins of singles and I’m plying them together.  Inevitably, I will run out on one bobbin before the other.  I know, in an ideal world, that my singles would be totally even and consistent and I would have the same amount on both bobbins, but it never happens that way.  So then I’m left with some random bit of single, and what to do?

In this case, I was plying the previously-mentioned superwash Merino.  Here, by the way, is the finished product, after setting the twist:

It’s about 150 yards of heavy-worsted.  I ran out of the peachy colorway first, leaving me with a bit of the ‘may flowers’ single left.  I switched Navajo plying (for a video demonstration, check out The Joy of Handspinning here: http://joyofhandspinning.com/spin-navajo-ply.shtml).  Navajo plying is a technique for plying from a single source.  The salient characteristics: It turns a single ply into a triple ply (meaning a.) you get a nice, thick, cushy yarn and b.) you end up with one-third the total length you started with) and it preserves color sequences.  Navajo plying is easy to do but hard to explain, which is why I recommend viewing the video if you’re unfamiliar.

Here is a close-up of the finished product in the two-ply section:

And here is a close-up of the Navajo plied section:

Because of the way you Navajo ply, it will tend to keep different-color segments of the single together, which can work to your advantage or disadvantage, depending on the effect you want to achieve.  In this case, I didn’t particularly want to preserve the color sequence, but i had that pesky bit of single left over and I didn’t want to waste it.  Since the colors were compatible, I figured I would ply it and use it as a coordinating accent in whatever I eventually knit up with this yarn.

Which brings us to another problem:  What to do with those smallish skeins of handspun…