On Sunday night I spun another 150 yards of “Dark Heart” yarn. Usually I’m pretty good at ending up with two bobbins that have about the same amount of yarn on them, so I don’t have leftovers after I ply. Last night, not so much. So I decided to try this “Andean plying bracelet” thing I read about. It’s a special way of winding singles onto your hand, so you can ply from both ends of the same yarn, instead of from two different singles.

I had more single left over than I thought.

To make one, you anchor the end of you yarn to your thumb. Then, working with your palm facing you, you make the “Star Trek” sign and put the yarn between middle and ring finger. You wrap your middle finger, go across the front of your hand, around your pinkie and across the back of your hand, then repeat.

Pulling your middle finger out of all that yarn is a little difficult, but those loops keep the yarn organized on your wrist.

After all your yarn is wound off the bobbin and around your hand, you wiggle your middle finger out of the loops very carefully. The loops will twist around each other a little, which helps to keep them all organized. Then you tie the end that was wrapped around your thumb and the tail end to your leader, and ply like normal!

It's kinda difficult to wind it off your had at first, but you figure it out.

I had to slow down the wheel a gear, because it took some learning to figure out how to pull yarn out of the bracelet. But this technique saved me a whole bunch of time.