After you have spun so much that your spindle is full, it is heavy and wobbly when it spins, and you just can't wind anymore yarn onto it, you are going to ply it. That means your finished yarn will be two strands twisted together. As you are spinning your singles (the single strand that you have been making and winding around your spindle), you can check to see what your finished plied yarn will look like by giving your yarn a little slack and letting it twist back on itself a little bit. Do you like how it looks? If it seems too loose, then add more twist and check it again. A well balanced finished yarn will twist nicely together without any kinks or twists on itself. If it is all kinked and tangly just pinch, stretch, and slide some more to lessen the amount of twist in your singles.
Now, to ply your yarn, you have to get it off of your spindle without untwisting and ruining it. The best way to do this is to make a center pull ball. Find a stick that's about 10 inches long. I have a 1 inch wooden dowel. You could use the handle of a wooden spoon or a paper towel roll-whatever you can find. Hold this stick in your left hand at one end, pointing it away from you. Now, grab the end of your yarn with this same hand-I like to tape it to the stick to keep it in place. With your other hand, guide your yarn up the stick a few inches above your left hand and wrap it around until you've got a band about an inch thick. Now start wrapping in a criss-cross fashion, diagonally from the bottom of your band to the top, rotating your stick around as you go. Make sure you keep pulling your yarn tight so it doesn't get untwisted and tangled. When you get all of your yarn wound off of your spindle, you should have a nice ball with both ends sticking out-one from the center, which you held onto or taped to the stick, and the other from the outside.
Slide your ball off of the stick, match these two ends together and tie them to the shaft of your spindle just under the whorl. Wind them around the shaft a few times, up over the whorl, and around the hook. Holding your ball in one hand, dangle your spindle and let a little yarn out. Then spin your spindle counter clockwise and watch your yarn ply together. Pull down a little more yarn from the ball, keep spinning counter clockwise, and keep plying. Wind it around the shaft, and keep on going until it's all done. Doesn't it look great?!
Even though it sure looks cool, you can't leave your yarn on your spindle forever, so you'll have to make a skein!
