Woodworking: April 2007 Archives
It's always nice to visit my parents in Ann Arbor. I get to check out what's going on in my mother's sewing room and I get to see what's going on in my dad's workshop as well. Dad, whose spinning just keeps getting better and better, has been inspired to create some spinning related tools. In the picture above are 4 wraps per inch tools that he turned using his lathe and some exotic woods that had been cut for pen blanks, but which work equally well for his purpose.
For those of you who aren't familiar with these tools, they are actually quite useful for knitters as well as spinners. You take your yarn and wrap the yarn around the tool between the gauge lines and measure how many wraps fit in an inch (for bulkier yarns or yarns that do not have a regular diameter, you might measure how many wraps are in two or more inches and divide as appropriate). This measurement tells you a couple of things: first, WPI can give you an estimate of the size of your yarn. For instance, yarns in the 21-17 WPI range often are considered sock weight yarns. You can also use this tool to determine if a yarn will easily substitute for another yarn. For instance, let's say you've got a pattern that calls for a yarn that, when measured, gives you 12 WPI. However, that yarn is wool, and you're allergic to wool and you want to substitute a cotton yarn. All you need to do to determine if you're likely to get gauge with that cotton yarn that you have in your stash is to take it out and measure the WPI. If it's close to 12 WPI, it's going to be a decent possible substitute (at least when it comes to gauge, WPI definitely can't tell you about elasticity or memory or other similar qualities which help factor into making a substitution decision).
* The yarn shown here is one of my dad's hand spun and plied yarns from his first stash of BFL. It's beautifully soft and lofty and I love the irregular quality of it. He's done a three ply as well and is spinning some blue corriedale fiber that is going to be absolutely gorgeous when he plies it up.
