Calculating Grist

I have been honing in my spinning skills and decided I would play with grist.  For those of you who do not know what grist is, it is the the number of yards per pound in a given fiber.  I have always been good at duplicating yarns.  This time, I wanted to spin a yarn to specifications without having a control yarn.  That took understanding grist.  Since I love math, I decided to give it a shot.

In my experimentation, I realized there are a lot of variables.  The major one being twist.  The more twist a yarn has, the shorter it becomes.   The other variable I found was the drafting rate.  The more fibers you have in a given length, the larger the diameter of the yarn which in turn effects the wraps per inch (WPI).  I also figured out that doubling the fiber amount does not double the yarn's diameter.  All of this effects grist. 

I had 8 ounces of merino wool.  I wanted to weave a small wrap with this wool.  I knew I would not have enough to ply the merino with itself but I thought I could ply it with a lace weight silk yarn to "stretch" it out.  To further set myself up for failure, I decided to spin my default yarn.  My default yarn is not thick, I just never calculated its WPI.  So I was going into this blind.  Plus, I knew I could always find something to do with this yarn if it was a complete failure. Which it was!

This is a WPI Gauge.  Many people use a ruler but the gauge is your most accurate way of measuring.  You want to pack the wraps as tight as possible.  The notch gives the yarn something to pack against.  But, if all you have is a ruler, by all means use it.

I used a WPI gauge and calculated my default yarn.  The single was 28 WPI.  So far so good, so I thought.  Using the formula in The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning my single had a grist of 693.  The formula I used was grist = yarn diameter squared X factor number.  Factor number is a number assigned to the yarn based on its characteristics.  My factor number is .884 for  a soft woolen yarn.  The problem my scientific mind has with the factor number is this is too subjective.  I may call a yarn "medium-firm" and you may say it's "firm" and most handspinners spin semi-worsted not a true woolen or worsted.  Sorry I digressed.  This told me my yarn had a grist of 693 yards per pound (YPP).  I had to divide 693 by 16 to find out how many yards per ounce (16 ounces in a pound).  I had 43.3 yards per ounce times 8 ounces gave me 346.5 yards (or divide by 2).  Even if I plied my single with another yarn, I would not have enough to make a wrap.

What did I learn from all of this?  I can't make a wrap out of 8 ounces of fiber.  If I would have spun the single thinner, I may have gotten a few more yards out of it.  But I wanted to see what my natural, default yarn measured and IF it worked great.  Since it take about 300 yards to make a pair of socks for me, that's what this yarn will be when it grows up.

Alpaca & Beet Experiment

After many attempts, we could not get a dye with the beets.  We were able to obtain a stain but once the wool was rinsed, it turned yellow.  Okay let me reword that.  We could not get at red dye from the beets.  We used iron as our mortant.  If you would like, try different mortant with the beets.  You will achieve various shades of yellows and greens.  The beet consentrate we used was Dr. Schoenenberger Red Beet Crystals. 

The manufacturer makes health claims that I neither agree nor deny but for our purpose of dying red, it was a bust.  We also used fresh beets with the same results.  So save yourself some bucks if you want to try this experiment and use fresh beets.

Madder is traditionally used to make red.  As you know from our previous episodes, my madder is too young to use right now.  I will have to search for a "sacrifical" plant, in order to conduct the experiment.

I am trying to get a good picture of the felt so you can see how soft the alpaca felts.  Just in case there are some listeners who have never seen an alpaca, this is what they look like.

If you want to play along, contact us to receive your free 1/2 ounce kit.

Our intro to the show is Arabia by Briareus and our post show music is Africana by 1000psi from the Pod Safe Music Network.

Podcast Format Side Bar

Happy 2010!  I know it's been a while since we posted a podcast.  I have been trying to improve the format.  I also want to make them available on a regular schedule. Plus, I want share the cool stuff I hear about in between episodes.  So, what I was able to come up with is this:

The podcast will be posted  on the 3rd Friday of the month.  In between episodes I will post "A Side Bar" which will include projects, photos and things I find that I think you may be interested in knowing.  You can also subscribe on iTunes.  Since they changed their format we a little difficult to find.  You have to do a search for VonStrohm and then you'll find us. 

I look forward to sharing a fiber filled 2010 with all of you!