a history of my first yarn

This post is for my Mom, so I can show her my first spinning project. (Hi Mom!)

It started with this roving. It's 50% superwash merino wool / 50% tencel (which is a manmade fiber made from cellulose.)



I spun it into thin lengths of yarn called singles.



I wound the 3 singles together into a ball in preparation for plying. (I got the idea from abbysyarns on Ravelry -- it's infinitely easier to ply from a ball than from 3 singles.) Plying is twisting the singles together to form a thicker, stronger yarn. I spin the singles clockwise, then ply them together counter-clockwise.



Last night I plied the singles, which took quite a damn while, let me tell you. This is a 3-ply yarn because it has 3 singles in the finished yarn.



Then I washed it, whacked it, and hung it to dry. This morning, it looked like this. It's BEAUTIFUL.







(Big picture can be found here.)