To ply for

Last poor quality spinning pun title, honest. Well, maybe not but I can't think of any more offhand.

Last week I shared this single, spun from 100g Shetland using a short forward draw.

I was a bit stuck what to do next. Choices were to use it as a single, navajo ply or weigh it and wind half on to a second bobbin.

I posted my dilemma on a Ravelry group and someone suggested making a centre pull ball and Andean plying it.

A bit of a google search showed that this just means plying it with itself. The Andean bit is really a way of winding it to make this easier, using a centre pull ball replaces the winding technique.

I tried it, but I think my ball winder was on the early morning cocktails because I ended up with a very lopsided ball. I figured it would be ok.

Never figure it will be ok.

Within ten second of plying the ends together I had some serious yarn barf. No photos because I couldn't put it down without making the tangle worse.

I wound it into a regular hand wound ball for safety and went back to google.

I was going to try the classic Andean plying, but found this Knitty tutorial for "handy plying" instead. I went with that as it seemed much simpler. 

100g of yarn causes quite a bit of finger pain. Sliding it down to make a bracelet was quite a relief.

Essentially you make a loose centre pull ball and put your wrist through to stop it tangling as you ply. The single comes off easily, making a two ply yarn with no leftover singles.

This ended up fairly thick, not something I usually manage. There is about 55m of 6 WPI yarn, some parts are a little thinner but not overly so.

I think it would be best teamed with another yarn for knitting, maybe a dark chocolate brown.

This is definitely my new favourite plying trick.