Moment of sheer stupidity #3547

Yesterday I was finally able to spin and ply the soay-cross fleece I’d been working for a local sheep-farmer. Sat in front of the telly spinning on my Joy quite happily. When it came time to ply I smugly set up the two spun bobbins in the built-in lazy kate, an empty third bobbin all prepped, and started plying - my first time plying on my pretty new Joy.

There was zero uptake.

I adjusted the tension. No difference. I oiled the flyer shaft. No difference. The bobbin just would not turn to pull on the yarn.

Finally, I gave up and carted my Country Spinner 2 down to the living room to do the ply, my Joy sitting to one side silently mocking me. Afterwards I went to bed feeling rather down. When I woke up this morning, I knew instantly what had gone wrong.

I’d forgotten to reverse the brake band!

Like a lot of spinners, I have a single spring on my brake band. This stops the bobbins uptake if you accidentally start spinning the wrong way. You have to reverse the direction it takes over the bobbin if you want to ply.

Oops.