Hello,

I posted this in the forum 'Spin-Off magazine' in the thread 'Spring issue', so sorry if I repeat myself...

I devoured the article 'Finding Balance' by Jennifer Shafer, but it has an illustration that I find anything but clear. The illustration shows two yarns, one singles and one plied, within an angle gauge.

The two yarns are very hard to see, but I'll believe that the angle of the singles is 68 degrees and that of the plied yarn 28 degrees.

Then, the explanation that goes with the pictures says: "Singles spun Z-twist. The angle here is 68 degrees (90 minus 2), indicating that the yarn is slightly underplied. The 2-ply yarn (right) has a 28 degree angle of twist."

   * 68 is not 90 minus 2, but 90 minus 22

   * a singles yarn is not plied at all -- how can it be underplied?

Is the plied yarn on the right plied from the singles from the left side? If so, is it balanced or not? Should it not also have an angle of 68 -- or the complementary one, being 22, rather than 28? If it's got 28, isn't it overplied, rather than underplied?

Maybe I'm getting something wrong here, Jennifer, are you here, can you explain this?

Barbara M

I'm with Barbara.... I puzzled over diagram too.  Please, would you print a clarification!

Jeanne S

Make that 3.  I came here expecting to find a correction for the above mentioned issue as well as the reference to page 37 under Testing for Balance.  I couldn't find anything on page 37 that would relate to this article.

Perhaps someone on the editorial staff could post a response.

Jane W

I also couldn't figure this out. Ditto on what everyone above has said.

I could be wrong, but its my understanding of this article that the two yarns are just examples of how to read your angles, one did not make the other. (And that it should be 90 - 22, that was probably just a typo).  My understanding is that you are supposed to spn the singles with the same slant (angle) as when you ply, just that the ply is in the opposite direction (so that makes the number different if you're reading a protractor, but if you eyeball it , you just make sure they look equal but opposite), so underplied would be if you just didn't put enough twist in the ply to make it equal the opposite of your singles angle.  Hope that helps?

I'm really glad to have found this article, looking forward to trying this and seeing if my yarn gets more balanced and less annoyingly twisty!

I cannot figure out from the photos how the angle of the twist is measured. It looks like yarn is resting on a line, okay, what are you looking at on the yarn, and how is that relating to the line?

It is probably very simple, and that's why I can"t figure it out.