Exploring Three-Ply Fractal Yarns

Many spinners are familiar with spinning fractal yarns from hand-dyed top. In her Spring 2025 Spin Off article, “Fractal Stripes from Blended Tops,” Becks explored the effects of color mixing using blended tops—multicolored fiber that was dyed before it was blended into to top. Becks mentioned she had experimented with a third ply, and we asked her to tell us more.

Cheers!

—Spin Off editors

What's the Difference Between a Two- and Three-Ply Fractal?

Whether you’re working with hand-dyed fiber or blended tops, a fractal spin is a wonderful way to let the colors shine through—or maybe hide a shade you’re less fond of! As Janel Laidman revealed in her article “The Fractal Stripe,” (see Resources) by plying together long repeats of a color sequence with shorter repeats of the same, you can create unique yarns in which stripes are formed as the two plies each transition from one shade to another.

Above: the two-ply fractal Becks explored in her Summer 2025 article, “Fractal Stripes from Blended Tops.” Below: Becks continued the experiment with a three-ply fractal.

By adding a third ply with even shorter repeats, your yarn becomes more complex, with softer stripes, an incredible depth of color and an overall effect reminiscent of a pointillist painting.[PAYWALL] The artistic technique of using tiny dots of color to give the impression of another shade relies on an effect called optical blending. Our eyes are unable to see the individual colors when viewed at a distance and instead visually blend nearby shades together—and that’s exactly what happens in a fractal yarn.

Compare the striping sequence created by a two-ply fractal (above) and a three-ply fractal (below).

In a two-ply, one color can only ever be lined up with itself or one other, often creating high-contrast barber pole sections. In a three-ply, it’s more likely that you will find three different shades in the same section. As each single is finer than their two-ply counterparts, they optically blend more readily and your eye sees a fourth shade. For example, the bottom of the three-ply swatch seems to show a beautiful, complex, muted coral which doesn’t exist in the sample fiber but is the result of the pink, yellow, and brown appearing close together.

Three-ply fractals create more opportunities for interesting color mixes, like the coral color shown in this swatch.

This optical blending effect has the potential to tone down strong colors, but more subtle shades may be lost entirely. It also makes the stripes far more subtle than the two-ply. When viewed at a distance, the stripes are still visible but they have softer edges compared to a two-ply of a similar thickness.

More examples of three-ply fractals from blended top, showing subtle stripes.

Three-ply fractals are so much fun to craft with—I’m always driven to complete “just one more row” before putting down my knitting because I’m constantly discovering exciting new color combinations in the yarn from one stitch to the next. I hope you encounter the same joy if you decide to give a three-ply fractal a try!

Resources

• Read Janel Laidman’s article that introduced fractal spinning.
• Read Becks’s article on creating fractals from blended tops in the Spring 2025 issue of Spin Off.
• Want to learn more about fractal spinning? Learn how to do it with Heavenly Bresser’s course, Spinning Fractal Yarns.

Becks shares her current projects and provides instructional content for other spinners via her YouTube channel, Tiny Fibre Studio. Based in Devon, UK, she also teaches online and in-person workshops. You can find her at tinyfibrestudio.com.