How to Be a Yarn Detective by Gretchen Hines-Ward

Yarn 101 Spring 2020

 

Sometimes you don’t know what your yarn is. I know, you meant to save the label or you thought you’d remember it, but here you are with a partial skein of something that might be perfect for your project. If you’re like me, you want to be pretty sure about a few things before you start knitting.

 

Questions to Ask

There are a few things I try to figure out if I’m stumped.

 

1. What weight is the yarn? If I know this I can pick the right needles more quickly, but I can also figure out what other yarn to pair it with in a multi-color project.
2. What is the fiber content? Sometimes I care a lot about this, other times not so much. If I’m going to felt it, it needs to be 100% wool. If I’m going to combine multiple yarns, it’s helpful to know what you’re working with. It can also give you a clue about how you—or the recipient—needs to wash it.
3. How much is left? Do I have enough to complete my project? This is always a concern for me, and I love nothing more than to use every last bit of yarn on a skein—without running out.

 

Let’s Figure that Mystery Yarn Out

Is it Worsted or DK?

If (or when) your yarn has no label, you can use several methods to “guess” the best gauge or needle size to use. Of course, you will want to swatch, but these tips can give you a head start, so you can start in the right neighborhood, needle-wise.

 

Wraps Per Inch (WPI)

A common suggested method is WPI, or wraps per inch. Simply wrap your mystery yarn around something (a ruler, your finger, a pad of Post-Its) and measure how many wraps you get in one inch. The trouble is, this method is very prone to inadvertent manipulation by the user, and is particularly inaccurate with large, fluffy yarns that compress when placed under the slightest pressure. However, it’s a helpful place to start. Be sure to wrap with even tension, and have the yarn just touching its neighbor.

 

The Craft Yarn Council has a page titled “How to Measure Wraps per Inch” that shows how many wraps per inch you should expect from a certain weight yarn.

 

 

If you simply want to know what needle to use, fold your yarn in half and hold it over your knitting needle gauge. See which needle size is about the same size as your doubled yarn. That size needle can be a good place to start swatching.

 

 

What’s in that Yarn?

You many need to know what is in your yarn, or what isn’t. A good (and simple) place to start is with a burn test.

 

Burn Test

Generally speaking, protein fibers are “self-extinguishing,” meaning they won’t continue to burn for long after removed from the flame. Cellulose fibers and some synthetics will flare up like crazy, and some synthetics also melt and drip.

 

I’ve created short videos of each fiber to demonstrate the burning.

 

While this isn’t necessarily conclusive for blends, it’s a big help when you want to determine if the yarn is wool or acrylic. Each fiber has a somewhat distinctive smell as well: wool smells like burning hair, while linen smells like a campfire or burning leaves.

 

I’ve found it difficult to decipher detailed descriptions of burn tests that describe the “ash quality,” etc., as they often don’t coincide with what’s described, even when I’m burning a known fiber. There are lots of descriptions online if you search for “fiber burn tests.” A short and sweet summary is as follows:

 

• Protein fibers (silk, wool, alpaca, etc.) generally self-extinguish and don’t flare too much.
• Cellulose fibers (cotton, hemp, linen) generally maintain or grow a flame and burn quickly.
• Synthetic fibers (acrylic, nylon) generally flare considerably and may drip. They often appear “melted” rather than burned.

 

It can be helpful to burn a known yarn, and then your mystery yarn, to see how they compare.

 

Bleach Test

Another useful test is the bleach test. Bleach will completely dissolve wool or silk if given enough time.

 

For this article, I tested three yarns in two dishes of bleach. The left dish had a piece of 100% wool and a piece of 100% acrylic. The second dish had a wool blend and another piece of the acrylic. I left them overnight.

 

 

Very quickly, the wool began to foam a bit; the 100% wool was foaming more than the wool blend.

 

 

The next morning, the wool had disappeared completely.

 

 

The wool blend was significantly “thinner” than the original yarn after a night in a bleach bath. Perhaps 22% thinner?

 

 

How Much Yarn Do I Have Left?

I love a good stash dive and often the most important question when using leftovers is, “Do I have enough?”

 

The best way to figure this out, I’ve found, is using a small digital scale, like a kitchen scale. (This one, as you can see, has been well-used.)

 

 

This may be obvious to many, but for some reason it took me a while to figure this out. The simplest way to think about it is:

 

• How many yards per gram are in this yarn?
• How many grams do I have?

 

(Note: I mix my imperial and metric systems here because grams are more accurate than ounces, and my mind thinks in yards. It works fine, just be aware.)

 

To answer the first question, you have a couple of options.

IF you have the label, you can answer the first question easily. Simply divide the yardage by the skein weight. For example, Cascade 220 has 220 yards in 100 grams, therefore 2.2 yards per gram.

 

If you don’t have the label, cut off a known length of yarn (I’ve used anywhere from 1 yard to 10 yards, depending on how accurate I need to be) and weigh that. If my 10 yards of yarn weighs 32.4 grams, one yard weighs 3.24 grams. A longer length can be especially important with irregular thick and thin yarns.

 

Next, simply weigh your partial skein. If your partial skein weighs 88 grams, and there are 2.2 yards per gram, then you have about 193 yards left in your skein. If your skein weighs 88 grams and it has 3.24 yards per gram, you have 285 yards left in your skein.

 

How easy was that?

In summary:

• Yards divided by grams = yards per gram
• Remaining grams x yards per gram = remaining yardage

 

If you keep track of your stash in Ravelry (which I recommend!), your project info can include how much yarn was used, and Ravelry will automatically calculate how much is left. I use this feature all the time when planning small projects, especially as gifts for the holidays.

 

These little tricks all help me make the most of my yarn stash. I take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in using up a partial skein of something lovely, rather than letting it lurk in my stash until the end of time. Hopefully you will find them useful too.

 

 

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