Drafting and Twist: A Thin Yarn Needs Far More Turns

**The back hand holds the fibre supply. The front hand controls where the twist is allowed to reach.** Between them is the **drafting triangle** — a fan of fibres narrowing from the mass into the yarn — and that triangle is where spinning actually happens. **Twist travels towards the thinnest place**, always. That is the self-correcting mechanism that makes spinning possible: a thin spot takes more twist, which makes it stronger and harder to draft, so the next fibres come from somewhere else. A yarn tends towards evenness on its own. **It also means twist must be kept OUT of the drafting zone.** Once twist runs up into the fibre supply, that part cannot be drafted at all and it comes through as a lump. The front hand pinching the yarn is what holds the twist back. **Short draw** — the hands close together, drafting a little at a time against the pinch, twist entering continuously. Controlled, even, and the way worsted yarn is made. **Long draw** — the back hand pulls a long way against the incoming twist, which drafts the fibre as it goes. Much faster, airier, and the way woollen yarn is made. It requires well-carded fibre and it is the harder of the two to learn.

A yarn twisted clockwise, so its surface fibres slope like the middle stroke of the letter **Z**, is Z-twist. Anticlockwise, sloping like the middle of an **S**, is S-twist. **Hold the yarn vertically and look at the surface.** The slope tells you immediately, and it is the first thing to check about any yarn. Three places it matters: **Plying reverses it.** Singles spun Z are plied S, and the opposing twists balance. Getting this backwards produces a yarn so overtwisted it is unusable, and it is the commonest beginner's mistake at the wheel. **It must match when repairing or joining.** Splicing an S yarn to a Z yarn gives a join that unwinds itself. **It shows in the cloth.** Warp and weft of opposite twist reflect light differently, and weavers have used that deliberately for centuries — it is how crepe and some shot fabrics get their surface. There is nothing intrinsically better about either direction. Z is the modern commercial default for singles, and plenty of traditions spin the other way.

**It drifts apart when pulled** — not enough twist. Add more and the same yarn becomes strong; this is genuinely fixable by running it back through. **It kinks and curls back on itself the moment it is slack** — too much twist. Also fixable, by running it through in the opposite direction, though the fibre will not be quite as it was. **Thick and thin along its length** — the drafting rate wandered, or twist got into the fibre supply and the thin bits took all of it. Slow down and watch the drafting triangle rather than the bobbin. **Lumps of unspun fibre (neps)** — poor preparation. The carding or combing did not open the fibre properly, and no amount of spinning fixes it. **Harsh and wiry when it should be soft** — overtwisted, or worsted preparation when woollen was wanted. **The test that settles it:** let a short length hang slack from the bobbin. A balanced singles will twist back on itself a little; one that curls into tight corkscrews is overtwisted, and one that hangs dead straight and limp has too little. **Sample and measure before spinning a project's worth.** Spin a metre, wash it, let it dry, and measure it. Yarn changes when it is washed — this is the next rung's subject — and a yarn sampled dry is not the yarn you will knit with.