I practiced Judith's plying technique today. Since a full JMM post has been an overwhelming task, breaking it down into parts might get the job done.
I transformed into one of those obnoxious people very early during my SOAR week. They are the ones who start sentences with "Well, Judith says......". But spinners understand the reason for the reference. She has settled into representing a gold standard for technical information.
If you will turn to chapter 6, page 101 of your handbook, Teach Yourself Visually: Handspinning, you will find a concise pictures of what the hands need to do for making a two-ply yarn. (Did anyone else make the mistake of thinking her first book was too basic? Ha. I thought I was hearing advanced gems from her lips until I came home, looked at her book more closely, and saw that it was all in there. I am humbled.)
If your yarn goal is a woolen spun yarn, use less twist in the single and more twist in the plying. The idea of less twist is to make sure the single is not spun into wire in order to hold the fibers together in the single. Use enough twist to keep the yarn together. Plying will add strength, especially to downy fibers. (Shorter staple fibers are what she recommends we choose for woolen spinning.)
If your goal is a worsted spun yarn, the singles should have more twist added during spinning. She recommends choosing longer stapled fibers, with less crimp. You can predict that socks and lace are well suited to worsted technique.
None of this is revelatory to more experienced spinners. She extends the logic. Everything you do to yarn will change it. Some of the changes are more subtle. English and Continental knitters change the twist of the yarn in different directions when they knit. For throwers, tighter ply will make up for the untwisting that happens when the yarn is looped around the needle. Pickers need tighter twist in the single to make up for the untwisting that happens when picking up the yarn with the tip of the needle.
Two ply yarns open outward and define stitches. More definition is obtained. Three ply yarns bloom inward, to fill in the stitch. Less definition occurs, but less yarn is necessary to create the garment. I wrote all this down faithfully, then found it on page 96.
Judith's nonverbals in class communicated more than what she would write in a published book. "A Woolee Winder is a fine tool, just not for spinning." She thinks the wheel is made less responsive by this spinner's helper. My Woolee Winder will only be pried from my cold, dead hands. I like mine for plying, and for comfort spinning. I suspect Judith thinks that a spinner who uses one takes less time and fewer interruptions to inspect the yarn as it is being formed. That habit can be formed without relying on having to change hooks. But it does take an extra level of discipline to make that decision and follow through with it.
She dismissed Navajo plying. While acknowledging its utility in keeping color runs together, she does not call it plying. It is "a crochet chain with ply twist in it". I'm tending to agree with her on this one. I don't like the way the yarn lies between the loops. The plying twist (in my hands) varies. I think it reflects light differently than a traditionally plyed yarn. I'm getting less lazy, and splitting my bobbins by weight or yardage, and then doing a traditional two or three ply.
I purchased a rustic roving that is probably Rambouillet/alpaca. I spun two bobbins (equal by weight) of slubby yarn, without picking out nepps or VM. Short backward draw, woolen spun, now in two-ply process on the Golding. It is being transformed into a soft, open yarn. I'm liking it.