A plying experiment

I like tapestry weaving. I have woven samplers with both worsted and bulky yarn. They each have their pros and cons.

I have a TON of worsted weight yarn. I don't want to buy any new yarn until I've used up more of what I already have. But what if I want to use a bulky yarn?

I have two spinning wheels. I know how to spin and ply yarn. It occurred to me that I could ply the worsted yarn to create a bulky yarn. Apparently, not too many people have tried playing commercial yarn (or else Google is bad at locating them despite a variety of search criteria). So I decided to give it a try.

What little information I was able to glean about plying commercial yarn indicated that it is important to reverse the twist, which meant Z-twist for these samples. Chain plying was also recommended. Chain plying creates a three-ply yarn from one ply. For comparison purposes, I not only chain plied one yarn, I three-plied some as well.

I was a little concerned the plies would not "stick" together, so I left the samples on the spool for a few days before setting the twist by soaking the skeins for 20 minutes in warm water, then swinging them around before hanging them to air dry. Except for the ends, the plies adhered reasonably well.

Above is the three ply: blue is Lambs Pride, gray is Cascade 220, pink is Manos del Uruguay Maxima. Below is the Lambs Pride chain plied. The three-ply feels loftier than the chain-ply, yet came out a bit ahead on wraps per inch (6-7 vs. 5-6); they both are closer to super bulky than bulky. The twist is tighter with the chain ply.

The next step is to actually weave a swatch or two with these samples. I may also try a two-ply, to see if I get closer to bulky instead of super bulky. This experiment is to be continued....