Plying from a centre-pull yarn cake

'Give it a go!' they said. 'It'll be fun!' 

Ok!  

Let's do this.  

First thought: this is not going to work. I'd purposefully spun the single thicker than normal so it would be a good fingering weight yarn. Immediately after taking the cake off the winder, the centre became a hellhole.  

Second thought: this could work.  

Ok... 

Shifting between keeping the singles separate and letting them come together and tension themselves seemed to make little difference.  

Well, it's definitely yarn... 

It wasn't terribly even but hey, first go at this. But then... 

Third thought: oh crap.  

Wait a second... 

As the cake lost its structure, it started to go wrong. Instead of pulling out twists and kinks that straightened out through my fingers, lumps of tangled hell. I can do this, I thought. This is a learning process.  

Fourth thought: you tangled, impossible SOAB.  

Crap.  

This was the point at which I gave up.  

What have I learned?  

• Plying from a centre-pull cake is, in theory, possible.  
• Not with fine singles though.  
• If I want two ply, I'll spin up two bobbins of singles. It's less wasteful that way, and there are fewer swears.