Can I Spin an 8-Ply Yarn Without Cabling?

One of the things I love about handspun yarn is when it’s obvious that it was not made by a machine. This doesn’t always mean thick-and-thin or art yarn though. There are just some color combinations you can’t get in a store. After creating a six-ply rainbow yarn where each strand was a different color, I jumped into a whole world of color combinations.

I came up with the idea to create yarn with seven to eight plies, where each ply is a different shade of the same color. Paradise Fibers was my inspiration—they have 100 colors of solid-dyed Merino combed top, 23 microns, and a staple length of about 3½". I made a spreadsheet of all of their colors and split them into groups of different color families, with seven to eight shades per group.

Kat weighs out each bundle of combed top before spinning the singles.

I measured out 15 grams of each color and spun each single Z-twist on the fastest ratio on my SpinOlution Worker Bee, and later on a SpinOlution Monarch. I mostly spun long draw when I could use a faster ratio, and when using a slower ratio, I stuck with a short forward draw. I spun a couple of my singles on drop spindles while traveling using a short forward draft.

I aimed for 30 wpi and about 30 degrees of twist. Especially when working with so many plies, under-twisted singles is problematic; having a single fall apart is very hard to deal with when plying. Over-twisted yarn is even worse. Pigtails need to be easy to pull out, because with so many singles, tensioning while plying is a challenge.

Plying with "The Laziest" Kate

Before I built my laziest kate, I used to wind my singles into a plying ball, smoothing out any pigtails as I went. This was a fine method, but much slower. You also need to figure out a way to keep tension on each of the singles as you’re winding onto the plying ball. If you go this route, be sure to keep tension on all of the strands as you release them from the ball when plying.

Inertia and momentum are important to consider when getting ready to ply. If your bobbin is heavy, it will take more force to pull the singles off, and it will rotate longer before stopping due to the greater momentum. If the bobbin spins much after you’ve pulled off what you’re ready to ply, you get instant pigtails everywhere.

I found I had the most control when plying from singles wound onto cardboard tubes or lightweight, 3D-printed 4-oz bobbins. Toilet-paper rolls work great for this because you can cut a slit three-quarters of the way along one side if needed to fit it onto a ball winder (and trim any excess so it doesn’t stick up). This makes a very lightweight bobbin with almost no inertia to overcome. And who has nine bobbins anyway?

Get a closer look! Click on any image below to view it in full-screen mode.

To ply the yarn, I made a lazy kate, with two columns and plenty of room to space out my tubes and bobbins. To make it even lazier and help manage all those plies, I overspun a cotton yarn (Sugar ’n Cream worsted) and cable plied it back on itself. I strung this cabled yarn in front of each bobbin. I threaded each singles through the plies of the cotton yarn, which allowed the cotton yarn to act as an extra set of fingers, keeping tension on the singles until plied.