Saturday, December 14, 2013

Countdown to Knitmas: Day 14!

Today, I want to tell you about how to figure out what weight that mystery yarn in your stash is -wpi or wraps per inch.

This tip is a simple one that uses a common tool. You wrap the yarn around any size ruler within the space of an inch. You want to be neither tight nor loose as you do this move; if you are tight thin you are squishing the yarn to appear thinner than it is and, if you are to loose, you cannot get the yarn to line up to even be measured. It is a gentle balance. I practice on yarns whose gauge I know already - wrapping and comparing to a chart that has the weights and equivalent wpis.




I found two helpful tips while practicing:
1. Walk away for a bit so that the yarn can relax and breath a bit.
2. Stroke your thumb over the strands to be sure that they are settled evenly along the inch and that they blooming.

I found the best chart was from the Ravelry.com resource page.

There are some cool mobile apps that have wpi tools built in. they are geared toward spinners as that is a common tool for that art. Check the respective stores for more info.
1. For iphones - iSpin
2. For Androids- SpinTech

While looking for resources on this topic, I found a great page from Stitch Dragon with some free tools including a needle inventory that mentions wpis and cool tags for cataloging your yarn.

This last link is just some real life experience in regards to applying this knowledge to real yarny life.

Happy Holiday Needling,
Anne


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