To wash or not to wash

Catherinechaos · To wash or not to wash

I have always just weighted my spun yarn after I've finished it but having recently spun some bfl and ridiculously overspun it someone told me to wash it first and then weight it

It seems this is normal practise - is this true?

sally

I usually wash wool after spinning it, then hang it to dry with a light weight on it

Spinning Fishwife

It still won`t set the twist in a permenant way. If you knit with it then wash it, the knitting will bias unless you used a stitch pattern which compensates for the bias. The way to set the twist permenantly on an overtwisted skein is to heat set it, either using steam or winding it onto something boilable then boiling it. Think of the diference between setting your hair on rollers, or a perm.

Or you could unspin it a bit on your wheel/spindle...take some of the twist out again.

I always wash my skeins after spinning them, btw...it helps the yarn to bloom and it evens out the twist a little if you`ve been uneven. I`ve been known to thwack the wet skeins on the side of the bath as well, just to help this process along. I don`t weight wet skeins because I always use my yarn to knit with, and if it`s stretched out then the tension of my sample square will change after washing when the yarn dries unstretched. As I don`t want my final garments to throw me any nasty surprises, I prefer to find out before knitting whether I have overtwisted yarn to deal with.

Catherinechaos

Thanks for your help, I'll have a go at washing and not weighting first. I have some hanging up wet and weighted so I'll be able to see the difference. I may even do some thwacking if necessary!