To begin spinning, sit on a chair or high stool. Keep a small bowl of water, spun and dried pieces of cedar bark, and a ball of wool roving nearby. Select two pieces of bark, plus two strands of wool roving of the same length. Place the ends of the bark even with the ends of the wool, and lay them over your right thigh so that the two separate wool-and-bark combinations are side by side.
Hold the ends of both pairs of bark and wool in your left hand between your thumb and middle finger, with your forefinger keep¬ing them apart. The pairs should lie in a V over your right thigh, with the ends separated and hanging loosely toward the floor. Then wet the fingers of your right hand and place them over both of the cedar bark and wool pairs.
Roll the pairs down your thigh toward your knee, keeping them separate all the way.
When the wool and bark reach your palm, they will have become spun singles, at least for a short length. Be sure you don’t let go with either hand, or the yarn will immediately unspin.
To start plying, remove your left forefinger from between the sin- ales: keep holding the ends with your left hand.
Keep the yon's on your thigh under your right hand, and continue the rolling motion down toward your knee.
When the yarns reach the base of your hand, reverse direction and start rolling the two-ply yarn back up your thigh under, your thumb.
Continue rolling the yarn until it reaches your fingertips. This tightens the ply and completes the basic spinning cycle.
With your right hand, grasp the singles where they begin to ply, and wrap the plied yarn around your left forefinger.
Before continuing to spin, keep the singles apart with your left hand while you unwind the back-twist in the loose ends of roving.
To resume spinning, place your left forefinger between the two singles at the point where they form, a Y with the plied yarn, using you>' thumb to hold the play on your forefinger. You'll find that it's no longer necessary, as it was when spinning began, to use your middle finger to hold the ends.
Roll the two singles down your thigh, from your fingertips to the base of your palm, as before. Remove your' forefinger from between the plies and continue rolling toward your knee, then back again, to ply the yarns together.
As you reach the ends of the initial lengths of wool or bark, splice in new pieces. To add wool, place each new length on the old so it doesn't go above the intersection of the singles; hold it between your thumb and forefinger and resume spinning. Add new bark when about 1 in. of the old remains, overlapping the ends. For an even yarn, splice both lengths of wool or bark at the same time, keeping the wool and bark splices within 2 in. of each other. If there are any ends coming out of the finished yarn, trim them off.
Whenever the roving becomes thin, add more wool. If the wool thin in places, splice in a small amount; if it gets too thick, pnMome off. When there's too much yarn to keep wound around your left forefinger, slip it off and start a ball. Be sure to tuck the free end in tightly, or the yarn will untwist. Now you'll need a place to keep the ball-tuck it under your thigh.
