Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

In her video “The Gentle Art of Plying,” Judith MaKenzie McCuin suggests that handknitters should knit with a 3-ply yarn. Her reasons were so compelling that I decided to give it a try.

She also says that you end up with a better quality yarn overall if you wind off your bobbins into smaller units and mix them up. There were compelling reasons for this, also, that I won’t go into (buy the video), but I decided to try this also.

Unfortunately, this meant either having a lot of spare bobbins hanging around, or winding off onto something else that would fit, and be stable, on my Lazy Kate.  Since I spin with a WooLee Winder, I don’t have a lot of spare bobbins that don’t already have something spun on them waiting to be plied!

So I went with option #2, winding off onto something else, and that is where we come to the point of this post.

From left to right, are my adaptations of solutions that Judith suggests in the video: My WooLee Winder bobbin, empty cardboard toilet tissue rolls filled with scrap foam rubber, a weaving bobbin (thank you, Allison), and a Yarn Core (from Nancy’s Knit Knacks – I have these in the Farm Store) filled with the rubber stuff you wrap your faucet with.

Now I’ve wound yarn off onto toilet paper rolls for years, but it always bothered me when I needed to use these makeshift bobbin that it bounced around and sometimes completely jumped off whatever I had it sitting on.  With the addition of the foam, each of these items fit snugly onto my Swedish bobbin winder and will work well with my Lazy Kate without all of that bumping and jumping around.

Reduce, reuse, recycle! I’m off to spin my beautiful 3-ply yarn!