BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Spinning Lazy Kates

Hi Lynn, Your article on lazy kates was very interesting. It does make a difference which direction the yarn comes off the bobbins doesn't it. One direction will untwist slightly? I imagine so long as we are consistant for the whole project in the way that we use our lazy kates, it will not be a problem.
.. Sara

Hmmm...well, the only way the yarn can come off of a bobbin on the kate is in the opposite direction of the way it went on. So a bobbin on a kate must turn in the opposite direction from which it turned while the yarn was being spun. So while a bit of twist may come out of the yarn while plying, the plying operation removes twist from the singles while the singles are being twisted together so any twist removed due to the bobbins turning in the opposite direction from which the singles were spun is easily compensated for.

Hi Llyn,
I shall have to find my guild's last newsletter. One of our members wrote an article and demonstrated using toilet rolls pulling the paper off with the bobbins upright, one coming off clockwise and the other anticlockwise, and what happened to the twist was quite remarkable. But I will look up the details.
It is all very interesting.
.. Sara

Hi Sara,

Yeah - that arrangement would affect the twist
If the bobbins on the kate are set up vertically and are not fed through some sort of control device to keep the yarns feeding off the center shaft of the bobbin, then more twist will go into the yarn if the bobbin is rotating clockwise and twist will come out if the yarn is feeding counterclockwise.

I was assuming the bobbins were set up on the kate so they would feed off evenly.

I would be interested in seeing the article.

Hi Llyn,
Below is the article. Di Kearney, one of our guild members, is a very talented spinner, weaver and dyer who is always ready to teach others. (I couldn't attach the photo).



ADDING & SUBTRACTING TWIST

One of our members was experiencing a problem as she was plying during the Ross Spin Day. Her wool was getting more and more twist in it and was becoming quite kinky. She had tried adjusting her tension and everything else she could think of. I remembered something that I had learned during a Katherine Alexander workshop about how the way in which the yarn is pulled off a spool (also how you throw the yarn when knitting) can affect the twist in the yarn. I suggested that she try turning her bobbins upside down on her Lazy Kate. Voila � problem solved!

There is a very good description of how twist can be added or subtracted when you unwind from the end of a spool in Peggy Osterkamp�s book �Weaving and Drafting Your Own Cloth � Number 3,� page 50 (Available from the Guild library). She illustrates this with a drawing showing two toilet rolls. I have included a photograph to show what happens here, but I suggest that you get two toilet rolls of your own to experiment and see what happens for yourself.

If you unwind from the toilet roll (or yarn spool) in a counter-clockwise direction then twist will be added in the �S� direction. If you unwind from the roll in a clock-wise direction �Z� twist will be added. Once you have added some twist if you turn the roll over you will see that if you keep pulling off the roll the twist will start to be subtracted. This has many implications for our plying, knitting and weaving, and if we know how this works then we can make use of this knowledge when we need to. On the other hand if the yarn is pulled from the side of the spool or bobbin, or indeed the toilet roll, then no twist is added or subtracted. (The same is true if yarn is pulled off a boat shuttle as the yarn feeds from the side.) I have experienced problems when knitting from balls of the newer fancy yarns when the way the yarn has been pulled off the ball has actually virtually undone the ply altogether and left me with two strands of slightly different lengths! In this case �throwing the yarn� the opposite way to normal when making a stitch can help to add more twist.
Diana Kearney