What Yarn Is This?
Most knitters I know are like me when it comes to acquiring yarn…obsessive. So often I find myself asking “What the hell is this??!!”
Google “What Yarn Is This”
When I do, Google’s AI Overview reads:
“To identify your yarn, you need to determine its fiber content (wool, cotton, acrylic, etc.) and weight/thickness, which you can do by feeling its texture, observing how it looks, checking its sheen/fuzziness, counting its “Wraps Per Inch (WPI)”, or even doing a simple burn test (carefully!). Online resources like Yarndex and Reddit’s r/WhatIsThisYarn can also help if you post pictures.“
Then it provides a couple of videos on doing a burn test to determine fiber content, a couple of ways of determining the weight of the yarn and even how to estimate how much yarn is there.
This large, relatively heavy cone of yarn had no label. And I had no memory of where I got it. In looking at it, it was a bit fuzzy, so I hoped it would be some wool. I was pretty certain it was a fingering weight yarn just by looking at it.
My first test was to start knitting a toe-up sock on US 0 (2mm) needles.
It was pretty easy to confirm it was fingering-weight yarn. And the stiffness of the fabric made me think it was cotton, not wool.
My second test was knitting a tube on my sock knitting machine.
Now I was pretty certain it was cotton. Or more importantly, I was definitely certain it was not wool. And that’s all I really needed to know. At least for now. I didn’t want to work with non-wool, so I can go back to my regularly scheduled program now.
Readers’ Comments/Questions
On the last blog entry on anti-ICE cookies in Springfield, MA, Fred writes:
“Have readers begun knitting their Melt the ICE hats? I just bought the pattern…”
No, and this is the first I’ve heard of this pattern.
For others who are late to this game (like me), the pattern is available here (with all proceeds going to the LynLake community of businesses who will distribute the funds to those impacted by the actions of ICE). Glad to see this all over my social media now as well.
Current Crochet
I was able to finish the first Thermal Stitch Crochet Hat in neon/hunter orange.
I love how the hat turned out and I will definitely be more visible and have warmer ears the next time I hike in the woods.
Then I decided to start another Thermal Stitch Crochet hat.
One of the things I love about Tony’s pattern is that it’s a double-sided fabric that can look totally different on either side.
About the Melt the Ice hat, a non-knitting friend just asked me to make one and sent me the pattern. I’ve got some red acrylic and wool in case I decide to make more. I checked out several projects on Ravelry. The two ideas I wanted to copy from them are 1) Stretchy cast on – someone said they used a tubular cast on which I’d like to learn. Or I could use Jeny’s slipknot cast on which I have used before; and 2) Add plain knit rows between the first 5 decrease rows at the beginning of the crown. Some knitters noted that the crown without this is quite shallow.
I decided to try learning the tubular cast on and watched two different videos, but I just couldn’t remember the steps to keep going for 96 stitches. So I went back to Jeny’s stretchy slipknot cast-on, but this time, it felt so hard to get the stitches close to each other. It took two or three tries and I still wasn’t thrilled with the results. But I pressed on with some loose loops at the cast-on edge. A couple of rounds later, I found I had twisted the work when I joined it. Sheesh! That was too many missteps for one evening. I ripped out the rounds I had knit and just cut off and threw away the cast on part, which was starting to look distressed from the repeated knitting and frogging.
Luckily, I expect the cast-on to be the only hard part of the hat. I’ll try again soon.
This is an easier method of doing a tubular cast on using waste yarn. There is also a reel going around that shows creating the stitches over a strand of wast yarn that I’m trying to find. But this looks easy enough to try for this hat.
https://shibuiknits.com/pages/waste-yarn-tubular-cast-on
Using a good ole’ K1 tbl, P1 rib is sufficiently stretchy that long-tail cast on works just fine for the hat I’m knitting. As Laurie states, several Ravelry knitters comment that a few rounds of plain knit stitches before decreasing makes for a decent sized crown.
Thank you for showcasing the pattern, Joe. Working on it makes me feel like I’m doing some tiny thing to show my disgust and outrage at how our neighbors all over the country are being trapped and dehumanized.
Found it!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSYTTVcjdNz/?igsh=ZHpha3BqejR3d3hj
A way I want to try for this hat.