Monday 15 April 2013

Why WPI and ply?

Technically the ply of a yarn is about how its made, the number of plies (spun singles) that are plied (twisted or spun) together to make the yarn not how thick it is.

But here in Australia and in some other countries we are used to talking about ply as thickness. When I was a kid it wasn't problem as the available yarns were all made up of a certain number of similar strands and the 5 ply was made of 5 singles plied, the 8 ply was made of 8 plies and so on, and then thickness increased as the number of plies increased, making it easy for the two concepts to become one.

But in the US and more commonly now in Australia yarn thickness is specified by a category such as fingering or worsted and by a measure of thickness called WPI or Wraps Per Inch. You can buy little tools to measure the wraps per inch or you can just use a ruler or piece of dowel etc, (remembering that an inch is 2.5cm in metric), you can find more details on this page from About.com.

This can be quite confusing for people who are used to the 8ply 12ply etc system when they come across a 3 ply chunky weight like my favourite Malabrigo Chunky for example.

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Raverly has to translate yarn weights across all the different systems so they have put together a standard system as shown here.

Monday 8 April 2013

Knit a Free pattern to earn Salvation Jane for free!

Sorry I've been missing, very busy with all my Malabrigo March KALs and CALS!

I'm offering a different type of special this month, if its successful I will offer more similar ones in the future, you can

KNIT A FREE PATTERN GET A PAID PATTERN FOR FREE!

The first pairing is Winglette Cowl (free) and Salvation Jane and the deadline for completed Winglette Cowls is 30 April 2013.

You will need a Raverly account to participate. You can download the Winglette Cowl pattern for free and if you knit one and fill out a ravelry project page for it, I will send you a Ravelry code for a free copy of Salvation Jane. Your project page must be linked to the pattern and must include at least one photo of your finished cowl, and be done by the end of 30 April 2013 in  your timezone. I will send codes via Ravelry personal message in the first week of May and you will have all of May 2013 to use your code to download Salvation Jane! Once you have Salvation Jane you will get any updates even after the end of May, just as you would if you had paid for it.

This is Winglette Cowl:-






and these are Salvation Jane:-




Salvation Jane is fast becoming my go-to pattern for quick one-skein gifts!