Do you find plying tedious? Are you impatient to start a project after hours of spinning singles? Do you want to keep the lovely color-ways in a dyed roving from becoming muddied? Do you want to produce a finer, more drapey fabric but don’t want to take the time to spin fine 2-ply yarn? There are many advantages to spinning singles yarn for knitting and weaving projects, including speed, color design, and producing finer weight fabrics. However, handling them can be tricky. We will discuss and practice producing consistent wool singles and then explore the design possibilities of singles yarns. We will learn how to work with biased or “energized” singles as well as how to block, size, and full singles wool yarns and fabrics. Students will create and take home a number of small knit and/or woven samples made from their own handspun yarn.

The instructor will provide different types of wool to work with; a knitting machine for quick sampling, as well as a pre-warped loom for students to weave on with their singles yarns.

Materials Fee (to be paid to instructor): $15

Skill Requirements: Students should be able to spin a singles yarn.

Materials Provided by Instructor: 

For Whole Class Use:

• Pre-warped loom for sampling
• Knitting Machines for quick knit samples
• Drum Carder, hackle, and wool combs for anyone in the group to use to prepare fiber for spinning

Each Participant will be provided:

• Angle of twist gauge
• Wool carded batts and roving for each participant to spin and make samples
• Packet of Handouts—Bibliography related to singles spinning; Outline of Workshop; Cardstock labels for recording information on yarn and fabric samples

Participant materials/equipment to bring:

• Spinning wheel or spindle
• Hand carders and/or small combs (if you don't combs or cards, students can use the shared equipment provided by instructor)
• Ball-winder
• Various gauges of knitting needles for swatching (if you knit) 
• A pin loom is also useful for making quick woven swatches (optional)