Full(ing) House

Good afternoon, friends! Alex again, and I'm here to talk yarn finishing. Yes, I'm talking about fulling! What is it? Why do we do it? HOW do we do it? What should I use? All these are questions that I've heard in my time working in a craft store, and I'm going to answer some of those questions right here! So what is fulling? Fulling is the practice of soaking and stretching your finished yarn to set the twist after you are done spinning or plying. Why do we do it? The process of soaking and stretching the yarn not only sets your twist, it can also help you ease some of the twist out of your yarn if you have overspun it. Overspun yarn will have what are called "pigtails", which are curlicues formed by the yarn being so twisted that it jumps back on itself.

You can see several pigtails in this first attempt yarn!

When your yarn is overspun you can either correct it while you are spinning OR you can full your yarn using a weighted or tension method to stretch the twist out of the fiber and relax the yarn into a normal, non-pigtailed state. So we know what it is and why we do it, but HOW does one full their yarn? It's pretty easy and there are a few methods, so you can pick what is best for you!

Step 1. Take your yarn off your bobbin and wind it on to your niddy-noddy. Use scraps of other yarns to tie the hank together (something to discuss in a later blog post) and remove it from the niddy-noddy. You don't need to twist the hank into a proper skein just yet, so don't worry about it!

Step 2. Fill a clean sink, bucket, or bowl with lukewarm water. You don't need your water to be super duper warm or ice cold, a nice room, temperature is perfect.

Step 3. Add your soak product (which I'll talk about in a minute) to your water and follow the instructions on the product to soak your yarn in the water and product. The instructions may vary from product to product, but my personal favorite method is to add a liquid soak product, submerge my yarn, and let it sit for 10 minutes or so.

Step 4. Without wringing or rinsing the yarn, gently squeeze the excess water from the yarn and lay it on a towel. This step is hard because your end may have worked loose from the rest of the hank and caused a little bit of a mess. Be patient, be slow, be careful, and everything will be just fine. :)

Step 5. Beat, snap, stretch, or tension your yarn and leave it to dry! My go-to fulling method is the beat method. After I've squeezed the excess water from the yarn, I take one end of the skein in my hand and beat it against a towel laid across the counter. Then I adjust the skein so that I'm beating another section of yarn. I repeat the beating and adjusting until I've beat the entire skein, then I hang it to dry. Another method that I may use is the stretching method. I happen to have a record crate that is the perfect size to slide a hank of yarn around. If I have yarn that is VERY overspun, I will squeeze the excess water out and then place the hank all the way around the lip of the crate, holding it tight and stretching the tension from the yarn. Another version of this is a tension method, where you hang the damp yarn and set a heavy object in the bottom of the loop formed by the hank. An old tin can with some stones in it works really well for this task! You can also use a snap method. In this method, you squeeze out the extra water, put one hand through each end of the skein, and then snap your hands apart repeatedly to force the skein to go taut, then relax.

Which fulling method should you use? That's a call that you'll learn to make on your own. If the yarn is pretty sturdy and not extremely overspun, I will typically beat it, then hang it to dry. If the yarn is fragile (think a single ply or a thinner weight) and not overspun, I prefer the snap method, followed by leaving it hanging to dry. If my yarn is kind of overspun but just in a small section, I like to use the hanging tension method and set the weight on top of the overspun section. If the yarn is very overspun and it's consistent throughout the skein (usually an issue with the plying rather than the spinning) I empty out my record crate and go for the stretch method. Now, what's the best product for soaking your yarn? There is no single best product. Soak is a popular brand that comes in a variety of scents and sizes. They even have little mini packs to let you try multiple scents until you find what you like! I use a very similar product called Eucalan. I loooooove my Eucalan products and have used it for fulling, cleaning, blocking, even just for getting rid of a super strong wool scent. I've used the grapefruit, the eucalyptus, and the jasmine Wrapture scent. The Wrapture scent is my abosolute favorite and I always have at least one bottle of it around for my own use. It is light and floral, but balanced rather than cloistering, and smells wonderful after it dries. I sincerely hope this helps clear up your fulling confusion and that you're willing to jump in and give it a try! You can always look up great YouTube tutorials to find more techniques or visual tutorials for the techniques I've shared. Questions? Drop them below! ~The Phoenix