WIP Wednesday: One cop, two cop, good cop, bad cop

Ah, the innocence of last week!  What was that I said?  Oh, right:

I'm hoping I can get this plied and finished over the weekend.

I was just a child then.  Bygone, carefree days of optimism.

Now apparently I'm a melodramatic teenager complaining about how hard life is.  Because I'm remembering the fun that ensues when you start unwinding your cop and ply it.  It's not as simple as it sounds, mostly because the singles really, really want to twist up onto each other before I'm ready for them.

To avoid tangles and tears, there are a number of strategies I've read about on various Ravelry threads.  I'm thinking that I'll be trying a different one on each of the five cops I have, but all two-plies.  So far, I have one finished hank of yarn by taking the center and outer end of the cop and wrapping that around a toilet paper roll.  Unfortunately, that made for a labor-intensive plying process that involved my mother helping with her own present by untwisting it as it came off of the roll.  I think I needed more tension as I was wrapping.  But even though it took longer than expected, it still looks lovely:

I haven't done all of the measurements, just washed, dried, and twisted into a little baby skein.  It's still amazing to me when I'm holding a finished hank like this.  I made that!

I've started on the second cop with a new strategy, this time using a paper towel roll.  I wrapped the center and outer end of the cop around the roll, keeping them on opposite ends.  The roll is now on one of those trouser hangers, so it can rotate relatively easily as I need it.  Here's a really bad photo of the set-up:

When you're a crafter, you have to be a bit of a MacGyver.  So far, this solution is working better for me.  I also have another cop that I have rewound into a center-pull ball on my ball winder to then be wound onto a two-ply tennis ball.

Wish me luck as I just keep spinning, and for more WIP Wednesday posts, visit Tami's Amis.