Category: A Good Yarn
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A Good Yarn
This morning PLY magazine posted the above on their Facebook page. This is something I have been trying to explain to weavers for, quite literally, decades. I even did a whole series of publications, *with samples* to show how yarns with different characteristics will create cloth with different characteristics. Sadly, now out of print…
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Stash Mysteries
blue – Brassard 2/8 cotton, white – US 8/2 cotton In preparation for doing some experiments I dug through my cotton stash looking for appropriate yarns. I was pretty sure I had yarn that was designated 8/2, even though I routinely work with the Brassard yarn which used to be designated 2/8 on their…
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Absorbency
several different cotton yarns This morning I opened my email and discovered an opinion piece that reflected on absorbency and was reminded once again that I did this article for Handwoven’s Yarn Lab a few years ago now. So many weavers have noticed that different cotton yarns vary in how much they will absorb…
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Yarn Choices
attempting to tame the dry linen by making a ‘humidor’ and letting the bobbins ‘steep’ in a humid environment for several days before attempting to weave with it. See link to previous post given below. Had a question this morning about yarns listed in a very old booklet with projects for weavers. The yarns…
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Deep Dive
Two yarns, the beige is a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the bottom is labelled 20/2 unmercerized cotton Two different 2/20 mercerized cotton yarns, one is much more tightly twisted and therefore thinner than the less tightly twisted yarn One yarn a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the other unknown manufacturer or count Having done a…
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Deep Dive
Two yarns, the beige is a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the bottom is labelled 20/2 unmercerized cotton Two different 2/20 mercerized cotton yarns, one is much more tightly twisted and therefore thinner than the less tightly twisted yarn One yarn a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the other unknown manufacturer or count Having done a…
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Deep Dive
Two yarns, the beige is a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the bottom is labelled 20/2 unmercerized cotton Two different 2/20 mercerized cotton yarns, one is much more tightly twisted and therefore thinner than the less tightly twisted yarn One yarn a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the other unknown manufacturer or count Having done a…
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Quality
What is quality? Most people take the word quality to mean *good* quality, not bad. But the word ‘quality’ isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s always a good idea to choose a yarn suitable for the purpose of the intended cloth. Yarn all by itself isn’t good or bad – it just has built…
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What’s in a Name?
The yarn on the left is Brassard 2/16 cotton, the yarn on the right is a ‘mystery’ yarn labelled 16/2 cotton. There is much discussion on what those numbers mean. Many people say that the order of the numbers is immaterial, that they are identical. What the photo above, taken with my digital microscope,…