I Love Navajo Plying

It is so true. So, today I was on Ravelry, reading the forums, and someone linked to a YouTube video about how to do Navajo plying - which, if you're not familiar with it, is a way of making a 3-ply yarn out of ONE bobbin of singles at a time. I had always heard it described as "making a long crochet chain, and adding twist". Now, I ask you - if that's all you know of Navajo plying, doesn't it seem like doing just that - crocheting a chain, then going back and adding twist - should work? And yet it does not. I could not figure it out.

Well, as the video clearly shows, there's one bit of information missing in that sentance. What you do, is you make a long loop and grab the free end of the yarn, like you're going to do a crochet chain, only instead of tightening it down into a chain, you slowly allow twist to go into that loop-and-end piece that you're holding. Having a loop means you're working with three strands at a time, then when you reach the end of your loop, well, you just pull that free end through some, to make another big loop! I tell you, a lightbulb went off in my head when I saw it. Ihad to do it. As soon as I got home.

And so I did, with one of the 2oz bobbins I've spun up of the Sedona roving. It does mean that I'm working with mostly one color at a time, now, instead of plying them together than I had planned, but I don't care. It's beautiful. It's the most even, lovely yarn that I have created. It ended up a light fingering weight yarn, and reminds me of nothing so much as the base yarn for Lorna's Laces. It's still definately thicker in some spots more than others, but overall I'm very pleased. I think I'm'a make me some socks.