spinning plastic yarn into plastic thread

Here is my ball of plastic yarn that I started with...
...and here it is after I finished spinning it. So you can tell that the spun plastic yarn (hereafter referred to as plastic thread) is a lot thinner. One thing I considered after weaving with plastic thread is that it will leave gaps in the weave (conversely, squishy plastic yarn will expand to fill-up the space between weft threads).

I used a very "sophisticated" model of spindle, shown above, made from a pencil, a spool of beading wire, an earring back, and duck tape. I did visit a specialty yarn store, but spindles run about $20 a piece.

A general rule with spindles is that the heavier the spindle, the finer (or more tightly spun) the final product. My homemade spindle is really light and worked fine.


Yes there is a hole in my sweater, I'll fix it once it bothers me :-)

Now moving on, the spinning theory is very straightforward. It took me about twenty minutes to get into the rhythm of it, so I'd say spinning is easy to pick up.

Megan LaCore made a great youtube tutorial on spinning wool that I used to get started. I did find, however, that plastic yarn doesn't want to take the twist. I solved this by agitating the plastic yarn by rubbing it between my fingers first.

So one hand spins the spindle while the other one agitates the plastic yarn as the twist moves up the yarn.

Summary: I found spinning to be a great watching TV activity. I spun ten plastic bags worth of plastic yarn in 45 minutes more or less.