Let’s Twist Again!

As Chubby Checker once sang, Let’s twist again, twistin’ time is here! This year’s annual Spin Off spin-along theme, “Twist-along,” is the perfect theme to encourage the participation of all spinners. Twist is such an integral part of yarn, whether you prefer a high-twist yarn or a low-twist yarn, it’s hard to make yarn without twist.

The Spin Off Knitters & Spinners group on Ravelry was buzzing with the release of the Winter 2025 issue. We were intrigued by the article “Adding Locks as an Intermittent Third Ply” by Amy Tyler and the Equinox Cowl designed by Sivia Harding. Several of us were already in the planning stages when we learned that this would be a perfect fit for the 2025 Spin Off spin-along!

Stefanie designed these Alpaca Farrow-Rib Mittens for the Winter 2021 issue of Spin Off. She plans to use the remaining fleece for a coordinating cowl.

My new winter jacket is a beautiful, earthy green, and I have some wonderfully soft fleece remaining from my Alpaca Farrow-Rib Mittens (Spin Off Winter 2021 issue; photo shown above); I do believe a coordinating cowl is in order! Last year, my family helped me create a large dye and pollinator garden on our property for Mother’s Day. One of the dye pots we prepared last fall included some tussah silk roving with dried safflowers and marigolds (see below). It became quite compressed during the dye process—nothing a quick steaming couldn’t fix. I plan to pull 4- to 6-inch staple lengths from the end of the roving and split it into thinner widths to use as my intermittent ply. The soft yellow color complements my brown-and-green color scheme perfectly, adding some brightness in another natural hue.

Stefanie dyed this batch of tussah silk using dried safflowers and marigolds from her garden.

With a call for bulky yarn, the Equinox Cowl is sure to be a satisfyingly quick project! So that got me thinking of what other ways I might interpret the theme. It has been a while since I’ve spun a cabled yarn, so that is a top contender. I do love cable knit socks, and cabled yarn really gives those cables an extra pop of dimension. The last pair I knitted with cabled yarn was Kate Larson’s Double Cable Socks for Spinners. I love these socks, but my multi-colored cabled yarn camouflages those beautiful cables a bit (shown below, left). I’d like to spin a more tonal or solid-colored cabled yarn this time around, so I settled on a wool-nylon blend roving dyed last fall (below, right) for some new cabled socks.

Stefanie plans to spin the wool-nylon blend (right) to re-knit the Double Cable Socks for Spinners.

Whatever project you come up with to spin for this winter/spring, we hope you’ll join us in conversation and project sharing in the Ravelry thread. Reading about one another’s plans and seeing the resulting yarns come to life is always inspiring, and it is more fun to spin with company! Maybe you can help me come up with a twist-related music playlist to get us all into a spinning groove!

When Stefanie Johnson is not protecting public health through environmental inspections and communicable disease investigations, she enjoys teaching others to spin, knit, and weave. The Johnsons raise French Angora rabbits, honeybees, and a variety of chickens and ducks on their hobby farm, Settlers Grove, in Illinois. More of Stefanie’s work can be found in Taproot, Knitty, Knotions, and on Etsy and Ravelry.

For more details on this year’s spin-along, click here.

And remember, if you’re a subscriber to Spin Off, you have access to back issues in the Spin Off Library. Find them here.