Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Swift Wool Lesson


DD#1 gifted me with a Gift Card to a lys.
Among others, these two Malabrigo Sock yarn hanks
made it into my shopping bag.



~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Appropriately named, the KAL is Ravelry Red will be knit into a great Cookie A sock pattern.
My other pick is Azules

I love to knit sox.
I love to knit sox 2-at-a-time.

I don't want to go 'mad' trying to knit with this yarn in this configuration so
these two hanks really need to be wound into yarn cakes. 
 That way I can knit two socks at one time using one 40" long circular knitting needle.

*  *  *  *  *  *  * *  *  *  *

This is where my new Swift gets a workout along with my postal scale and yarn ball winder.



You can see the Swift in it's collapsed state.
The umbrella-like part that will hold the yarn,
the screw at the far right that attaches to the table table top
and in between the umbrella and the 'attacher' is the set-screw portion that holds the umbrella open.

Knitting two-at-a-time sox requires two balls/cakes of yarn.
The hank of yarn [minus the paper tags] must be weighed [in grams] 
I want both balls/cakes to be same weight/length.



Ahhh, we have 96 grams of Ravelry Red to work with today.
That means we'll end up with two cakes/balls 48 grams each.



Once the hank is untwisted it looks like this.
The white twine is woven at three places around the hank to keep zillions of tangles appearing.  Oh, what fun that was, just ask Hubby.
These will be cut and removed once the yarn is on the Swift.


The Swift expands to fit the current hank of yarn.
This is the part where Hubby does one part of our operation.
He's putting the hank on while I expand the umbrella and set the adjustment screw.




Getting ready to wind onto the ball winder the separator twine is removed.

Oh, hey, don't want to forget to tell you that the spindle comes off the winder  
I've weighed it and marked it
- 15 grams -



Now we are set to begin winding the first ball.
YaHooo



Once we guessimate that we're at the half-way point 
yikes!  gotta do the math 

96 grams of yarn divided by two balls = 48 grams
48 grams plus 15 gram spindle = 63 grams

Whew! that wasn't to bad.




After a couple of hundred turns on the winder a quick weigh-in.
Twenty-three grams short of half.


A few for winds and here we are !
SIXTY-THREE GRAMS



Weigh in without the spindle.
Oh, so shoot me we're one gram shy.
Hey, they say one foot is always smaller than the other.



Here's the second ball's weigh-in.

That's it  -  That's all !

Hey, quick, easy, accurate [give or take a gram this time].

#  #  #  #  #  #  #

Ready for action!
Hmmm, which Cookie A design will these end up?
Lucky Feet.

Hugs
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥



7 comments:

  1. Gorgeous sock yarn, Gerry. I've not tried Malabrigo sock yarn, only the worsted weight, and I'm curious to find out if it is just as nice. Hope to hear how it goes knitting two socks at once-- that process is fascinating.

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  2. I love that red shade, just my colour

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  3. so that's how you make those pretty yarn cakes! looks like so much fun!

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  4. DH and you did a great job photographing this informative tutorial. I LOVE the red yarn--can't wait to see what pattern you choose for it.

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  5. Gerry - this is too much work for me - all the untying, weighing, winding, weighing. But I have to admit, it's much nicer yarn than what I can buy at 'you know that other store we all go to once in awhile'.

    Hugs - Marie

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