Saturday, March 20, 2021

Standardized... sorta

At the last spinning guild meeting, I brought up a discussion about control cards and the fact mine came with a WPI chart that differs from the one on my WPI tool.

One member lamented the fact that there was no standard definition for WPI.


But there is. However, it provides a *range* of wraps per yarn weight. (This photo is from Yarnitecture, by Jillian Moreno.)


The lesson here is, no matter what weight you think your yarn is, always, always, always knit a gauge swatch before starting a project.

Knitting: I am at the 33" mark with the Reader's Wrap and have used up nearly a whole 8-oz. skein of fisherman's wool. There are two more skeins in my stash, so no worries about running short. While knitting, I contemplate maybe dyeing the whole thing once it's done, but I'm not sure how the wool will take dye. Like swatching, a test sample is called for.
Spinning: I decided to take a week away from spinning while I plot my next project. I have a lot of Tunis red roving that I spun up a while ago. I didn't like the results, so experimented with mixing in various amounts of white, gray, and black. But now I've decided I *do* like the plain Tunis red, three plied in what feels like an Aran weight yarn. Hopefully, I can duplicate my effort.
Weaving: I am almost done with the first towel on the current warp. I'm toying with the idea of double weaving the second towel, to create a heftier fabric. It's not uncommon to double warp a loom, so I think this will work, or work well enough.

It's been a year since my last outing, which was to the Jay County Fiber Arts Festival. This year's event was cancelled. However, they plan to have a virtual festival on April 24, with virtual classes and the marketplace. There is a class on fiber prep that I just might take, given I have several fleeces in the garage, just waiting to be processed.

1 comment:

Mereknits said...

last year at this time we could never imagine we would have been closed down for a whole year! But there is hope. Stay safe.