Friday, July 9, 2010

DIY Andean Plying Tool

So in an act of desperation I invented me an Andean plying tool. If you don't know what Andean plying is, it's a technique where you wind unplied yarn onto your wrist in a certain way and then you are able to ply it with itself and off your wrist. The biggest downfall with Andean plying bracelets (referring to the yarn that is around your wrist like a bracelet) is that 1)you are supposed to wrap part of the yarn around your finger and eventually, if you have enough yarn, your finger starts to lose feeling and turn blue and 2)once it's around your wrist, it's really hard to get it off when you need to, oh, I don't know... pee? So, with those two things in my head, I was looking at my spindle full of singles and dreading the bracelet (though it's my all time favorite way to ply). Then, inspiration struck.



It's made from a large disposable plastic cup, two 10" knitting needles and one 7" DPN.



The top needle is for wrapping around like you would on your finger. The bottom 10" is for holding the yarn as you wrap around. The DPN is for tying the ends to (It's not really that necessary. If you can think of another way of keeping the ends free... go for it). The picture of the inside shows how I used the three needles to stabilize each other.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

love it! thanks! i gotta give this a try!
(shetibo on ds)

Amie said...

Glad you liked it... I'd love to see pics of what you come up with :)

SinystyrMandee said...

10 years later... I'm a new spinner and I just found this. I think I need to try this!!! I saw where another spinner had wound her singles into yarn cakes to ply one from the inside and one from the outside. I'm just getting a knotted mess! I think I'm going to try this and see if I get less of a mess. I don't know if you still see comments but thank you!