What to do after the end
Mar. 17th, 2024 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrileemakesSo I've finished my giant shawl and didn't even run out of purple yarn, which is amazing. But what to do with the leftover blue and white? I still have a few balls of white yarn in my stash so the leftovers of that is going right back into the stash basket.
The blue is a little more precarious, as it's handspun so there's no label to work out the remianing meterage, and there's no more to be had of it anywhere in the universe. So what to do with a partial ball of unique yarn?
Do some empirical research!
This here is the KnitPro Jumbo Ball Winder and the Dreaming Robots Electric Eel Wheel (EEW) Yarn Counter. Neither of which I sell in my shop. You think I'd use a blog attached to my online shop to flog stuff, but I don't... The only time I mention a product that I do actually sell I don't mention it, because it's super nice and also discontinued and I want it to not sell so I can 'oh no deadstock better make something with this'....
Aaaaaanyway. Here's a l'il windey video of me running this ball of yarn through the yarn counter and into a ball again.
And the result?
Yarn objectively measured! The EEW Yarn Counter has settings to adjust for yarn thickness too, because that can affect the way it counts. But unless you're measuring super thin or super thick yarn you can just leave it on the default setting.
I just used it in a fingering/4 ply weight pattern but lets double check. Yep, 14 wraps per inch. (Wraps per inch (WPI) is a very subjective measurement. If you asked 10 people to measure the WPI of a yarn you'd probably get 6 different answers. But it's a good ballpark measurement).
I can then throw these measurements into the Ravelry advanced pattern search. Looking for patterns that use 200-224m of fingering or light fingering (about 16 WPI) yarn that are already in my Ravelry library gives me 80 patterns.
A lot of them are sock though, and this 2-ply handspun Corriedale and silk yarn is too delicate for socks. You'd wear a hole in the sock in less than a dozen wears. So I excluded socks from the results and, voila 38 patterns I can make with this leftover yarn, just at my fingertips. Not all of them will work, because some need multiple colours or are designed for cotton yarn, or for some other reason. But 38 patterns is small enough to scroll through and pick some favourites.
For this yarn I'm going to consider the Gluma Beanie or Wavy Mittens. Definitely start with the beanie as this yarn is a little delicate, but I'll see how the pattern turns out.
The blue is a little more precarious, as it's handspun so there's no label to work out the remianing meterage, and there's no more to be had of it anywhere in the universe. So what to do with a partial ball of unique yarn?
Do some empirical research!
This here is the KnitPro Jumbo Ball Winder and the Dreaming Robots Electric Eel Wheel (EEW) Yarn Counter. Neither of which I sell in my shop. You think I'd use a blog attached to my online shop to flog stuff, but I don't... The only time I mention a product that I do actually sell I don't mention it, because it's super nice and also discontinued and I want it to not sell so I can 'oh no deadstock better make something with this'....
Aaaaaanyway. Here's a l'il windey video of me running this ball of yarn through the yarn counter and into a ball again.
And the result?
Yarn objectively measured! The EEW Yarn Counter has settings to adjust for yarn thickness too, because that can affect the way it counts. But unless you're measuring super thin or super thick yarn you can just leave it on the default setting.
I just used it in a fingering/4 ply weight pattern but lets double check. Yep, 14 wraps per inch. (Wraps per inch (WPI) is a very subjective measurement. If you asked 10 people to measure the WPI of a yarn you'd probably get 6 different answers. But it's a good ballpark measurement).
I can then throw these measurements into the Ravelry advanced pattern search. Looking for patterns that use 200-224m of fingering or light fingering (about 16 WPI) yarn that are already in my Ravelry library gives me 80 patterns.
A lot of them are sock though, and this 2-ply handspun Corriedale and silk yarn is too delicate for socks. You'd wear a hole in the sock in less than a dozen wears. So I excluded socks from the results and, voila 38 patterns I can make with this leftover yarn, just at my fingertips. Not all of them will work, because some need multiple colours or are designed for cotton yarn, or for some other reason. But 38 patterns is small enough to scroll through and pick some favourites.
For this yarn I'm going to consider the Gluma Beanie or Wavy Mittens. Definitely start with the beanie as this yarn is a little delicate, but I'll see how the pattern turns out.
