# Overspinning--Discouraged



## MoVikingSheep (Oct 12, 2013)

Hello, I've been trying to teach myself to spin now for about a year. I get frustrated with it because I overspin. I have two drop spindles and a Kiwi 2 wheel. One drop spindle is from an idie maker. The other is a Spinolution spindle. With the Spinolution I've achieved two balanced singles. Otherwise my yarn is way overspun. I have hand dyed roving from Brown Sheep Shed and my own Icelandic undyed hand carded wool as well as dyed BFL roving from a seller on Etsy. The two balanced samples are from my own Icelandic wool I hand carded and the other is the BFL. In the past I overspun both the Icelandic and the BFL so I don't think it's a question of type of roving, source, so on.

I live in a remote area. There aren't many spinning groups here and the ones that exist are over an hour away. One's 90 minutes away and the other is nearly 2 hours. I've been trying to learn on the internet. I'm really discouraged and frustrated. Does anyone have any ideas or tips? Perhaps web pages and video links? To make this even more difficult I have satellite internet so unless I use You Tube, etc. in the middle of the night video streaming eats up my data allowance. I have copies of Respect The Spindle, Spinning Mindfully (exact title?) and one on art yarn. The art yarn book was a gift and I looked at the instructions for coils and so on and put it away. I think spinning a regular yarn is key before I get all fancy. Besides, my balanced singles could be art yarn anyway as it's lumpy and fuzzy. I'm ok with that. I think it looks unique and my knitted swatches are really pretty.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

Hi.  

Sorry to hear that you are frustrated.

First, I wonder what you mean by "overspun". 
When you say you have spun a 'balanced single' a couple times, how are you judging that?
Maybe you could show us a photo of what you are doing?

Singles are supposed to willingly double back on themselves.
That is what holds them together when you ply them.
Have you done any plying yet? 

Skinnier strands require more twist to hold together than thick ones.
Try drafting the wool down to a thinner dimension.

Seriously, a lot of spinning is just PRACTICE.
Slow down your feet and speed up your hands. 
Sounds easy, right? :teehee:

It will all click eventually.
Keep trying.


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## MoVikingSheep (Oct 12, 2013)

Thanks so much for offering to help with feedback. By overspinning I'm talking about the pigtails that form when the spun single doubles back on itself. It's tight, and it doesn't look like yarn. In one book the author shows how it's supposed to look and hers looks like yarn. Mine looks like a pig's tail with more circles. By balanced single I mean I can take the yarn off the spindle, tie it, soak it in hot water, then hang it on a hanger and it doesn't double back onto itself and it hangs evenly. I've produced singles that form their own skein after I do that. I've attached pictures of one BFL single and knitted swatch that I thought turned out pretty well. The knitting has cast on and bind off issues but that's not uncommon with my knitting


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## Rosepath (Feb 18, 2011)

Honey, you're doing just fine. It is a matter of practice, but you've got the basics.
Be sure the fiber is very well carded, or if using roving, pull off a slim, long "string" of it, and pre-draft it by gently tugging on it every couple of inches just to move some of the fibers along. I have been spinning for 30 years + and still get overspun singles if I forget to make sure the fiber isn't stubbornly dense before spinning. Check your wheel, to get it to draw in well you may need to play with adjusting the tension.
I personally find wheel spinning a lot easier than drop spinning, just from my experience. Keep at it, your samples look good to me!


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## Kasidy (Oct 20, 2002)

Looks fine to me also! And I have been a spinner for 40 years. Singles need a bit of time and tension for the twist to "set" so to speak. If you take it off the wheel and skein it immediately it WILL twist. What I do with my singles is skein them up and then get them wet and hang them to dry with a bit of weight on them to pull out the twists. When they dry the twist will be evenly set through the yarn and you will not see the pigs tails.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Yes, you are doing fine from the pictures. I'd suggest you also do a 2 ply ,ply in the opposite direction that the singles were spun in. Eather slow down your feet or add more draw to your yarn intake to keep from overspinning. 
I too have been spinning along time,self taught. I taught a friend and she bought a wheel. I could never convince her to slow down, her yarn was so overspun a sweater would weigh over 10 pounds. She eventually gave up and sold the wheel. Don't give up and try relaxing ,don't be hard on yourself. If you need to set aside the spindles and just use the wheel,that's ok. Heck, I've never even tryed a spindle, I dought I could be pacient enough.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

It looks like yarn to me as well. 

I agree that maybe letting your singles 'rest' on the bobbins for a few days
would help calm them down a bit.
Also, if you were to ply 2 strands together, a lot of the twist would cancel its self out. 

Be sure you are holding your unspun fiber fairly loosely in your hand.
It is common for new spinners to get a sort of death grip on the roving and that 
makes it difficult for the wool to slide. 
Seems obvious, but it was a problem I had myself. 
My tension was adjusted too strongly and the wheel was ripping the fiber out of my hands.
You want it to gently accept the spun yarn, not fight you to keep hold of the wool.

I think you are off to a fantastic start. Keep at it. 

Just curious, what county do you live in? I am in Wright.


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## Ana Bluebird (Dec 8, 2002)

Looks good to me too. One thing I have newbies do is practice treadling their wheel when they start with no yarn, slowing their foot (feet) as slow as possible without the wheel turning backwards, just to get the rhythm. As 7thswarn says, "


> slow down your feet or add more draw to your yarn intake


". But you are doing great, really!


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## MoVikingSheep (Oct 12, 2013)

Thanks everyone! I live in McDonald County, Missouri. It's about 90 minutes south of Joplin and half hour north of Bentonville, AR. My house is nearly smack on the Barry County line.

My husband is too lazy to make me a niddy noddy so this is what I do with my singles. I have a board about 2 ft long. I wrap the single around the board, tie string in figure 8s as if it's a skein I'm going to dye, then I put the board in hot water, make sure the yarn is soaked through, take it out, pat the excess water off, slip the yarn from the board and hang the yarn on a clothes hangar. That's when I really see what I think is overspinning that's beyond what most people will work with. I have one single that's so "energetic" that when I took it off the bobbin (had been on the bobbin weeks) that it twisted to look like a skein in a yarn store.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

If you would like pictures of a niddy noddy to make your own,just ask.One can also use steam instead of wetting the skein. Just hold over a kettle spout of steaming water,you can watch the yarn relax right before your eyes.I use a inexpensive clothing steemer, a travel size. Sure has come in handy, I even used it to remove wallpaper,what a lifesaver that was.


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## Spark (Aug 16, 2015)

Your singles are fine and also known as art yarn. After more practice you will get it more even and will try hard to get this effect in the future. As others said, ply it and that will balance out the twist. Also, I do let my yarn rest and have taken it off my wheel directly onto a ball winder. I prefer to ply from a center pull ball. Keep practicing. You are doing great!


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## MoVikingSheep (Oct 12, 2013)

Hello and thanks again. I have some lace weight merino in a beautiful shade of blue. I don't like it. I got it for a pattern that's beautiful but it has errors in it and the original pattern is a free download but to get the corrections I have to pay. So, I have this webby yarn that I can break with my hands easily. Is this a good choice for plying or do I need something stronger? All the yarn I've spun is in small batches. If I ply it on itself I'll end up with half the yardage. I'd like to find something suitable to ply it with.


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## Spark (Aug 16, 2015)

Personally I would want a stronger yarn. A commercial yarn can be used for art yarns such as coils or core spinning. Singles that are over or under spun can still be used. Just have fun and practice. It's the best way to learn. And don't forget to have fun.


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

MVS,

If you ever come north on i35, I'm just 30 miles north of the MO border, in Osceola, IA, 2 miles off the interstate. I've been spinning for 27 yrs. I have a small Rappard Wee Peggy castle wheel that goes as slow as 2 tpi (twists per inch) (2 turns of the flyer per one full revolution of the drive wheel) up to 5tpi. That is REALLY slow and would be very easy to learn on, and gain more success. You are welcome to come here and spend a couple of days and use my wheel and learn from me, if you ever want to do that. I'm at home 7 days a week, so no matter when you might be going past my town, I'd be here.

Your overspinning depends on whether you are wanting just a single strand yarn, or a 2 ply yarn. I will say that knitting with a single ply yarn often makes the knit garment, swatch, etc, "skew" to one side or the other, depending on if the single is spun Z or S (clockwise or counter clockwise). Your knitting will be straight only with a plyed yarn. 

I'm not sure if calling a singles yarn "balanced" is an accurate term, I don't think a singles yarn is EVER truly "balanced"; a singles yarn that doesn't twist into pigtails on itself when taken off the niddy noddy just means it has less twist in it, period. A balanced yarn is generally a plyed yarn that hangs straight once it's off the niddy noddy and tied in 4 or so places to keep the strands of yarn in the loop form, and the group of strands doesn't want to twist in one direction or the other. 

Plus, you say you wet/wash the singles before you hang it to dry to "set the twist", and then it hangs straight. Actually, you are just making it straight while wet, and once dry the true twist in it is then "latent". If you knit with it and then wet/wash the finished knitted item, the twist will once again be alive and set free and your knitting will then skew crooked. _A balanced yarn hangs straight and true before it's wetted and hung to dry._

For a balanced plyed yarn, if you spin your singles with, let's say, 10 twists per inch, spun Z, clockwise, when you ply it to the S direction, counter clockwise, a balanced 2 ply yarn would lose 30% of the twist in the singles. 30% is the general amount of twist lost in proper plying. A properly spun singles for plying DOES have too much twist in it. You're seeing pigtails because you're not holding the doubled up singles with tension while it's twisting back on itself. You have to keep the two singles equal in length and taut, to make it ply smoothly with no pigtails, with equal tension on both strands.

I think you're getting slubby singles because you're letting the twist go up too close to your drafting zone, that triangle of unspun fibers right past your fingers before it's got twist in them. You want to do the drafting with no or little twist in the drafting zone, and once the fibers are drafted, THEN you let the tist enter them, but once again, not so far into them that you're drafting zone, once again, has the twist going too far into the unpun triangle of fibers.

Another cause is gripping the fibers too hard in your hand. Loosen your grip, and let the fibers slip through your fingers more, and with that drafting zone clear of twist, you'll get a non-slubby yarn.

Hope this helps!


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