Hand Plying

Remember that spinning I was doing a while ago? It is in the process of becoming a hat for my mean little sister. Sometimes she isn't mean though and that is why she is getting a hat. Actually, now that I think about it she is getting the hat because she is mean: she keeps stealing mine.

So the hat. It is pink Surprise surprise. That is what colour the roving was.
It is progressing rather nicely... it is a Ysolda Urchin beret from the Fall 2007 of Knitty.

So the really cool thing that happened tonight and prompted me to be a good little blog keeper and actually write a post was that I plied the last of my singles. I had given it a bit of a rest, I was more excited about actually knitting with the stuff I had already finished, but as I was flicking through my ravelry groups, I saw the Beginning Spinners group. In the forums was a little thread on what to do when you fill a spindle. Here I came across Andean Plying, a term I have heard but never really grasped what it meant.

A quick google search revealed that lots of people think that Andean Plying is tricky. It also revealed a great KnittySpin article on hand plying, which is pretty much the same thing.

Basically you wind the single in a not very tricky way (unlike Andean plying as far as I can tell) around your hand. Then you slide it down onto your wrist and grab the two ends of the single. Attach them to your spindle and away you go!

Here is the results:





Sorry for the craptastic photo, it just isn't in me to do any editing tonight.
Now I need to get knitting. Well maybe tomorrow. Bed time for me now.