Friday, February 4, 2011

Yarn happens.

Just not very often around here, seeing that the last time I posted was in July.



This is from a cheese of Fingerlakes Un-Spun given to me by my friend Rebecca. Approximately 90 yards, measured by the number of cranks my ball winder required to wind it off the bobbin. My eye tells me this would knit up as a fat fingering yarn or a light sport weight.

It took just this side of forever to fill a bobbin, roughly an hour to ply it back upon itself. I won’t know if it's a good yarn until I have washed it and set the twist, then knitted up a few swatches. I like worsted yarns better than woolen, as a rule. But it’s pretty, and very soft.

I really do need to spend more time at my wheel. I used to spin far better yarn than this, with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back, but that was twenty years ago. And I can feel in my hands and right wrist that I have been working those muscles today. I will probably still be feeling that tomorrow.

Still, an excellent way to spend my third day at home during the pre-Super-Bowl Snowpocalypse.

The website says that one strand of the (extremely fine) pencil roving contains approximately 2200 yards per pound. This ball weighs 2.1 ounces or 59g; I make that to be approximately 290 yards for the singles, or 145 yards plied. Which puts it almost exactly where I guesstimated it for weight, compared with KnitPicks’ sport and fingering weight yarns.