• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • SHOP
    • Upcoming Release Gallery Photos
    • Free Classes/Workshops on Teachable
    • Special Offers on New Releases!
    • Why Jill Wolcott Knits Patterns are Expensive
  • BLOG
  • LEARNING
    • Free Classes/Workshops on Teachable
    • What Is An Action Chart?
    • Menu of Techniques
    • Techniques Library : What’s In There?
    • Abbreviations
    • Sizing Tables / Charts / Guidelines & Croquis
    • Pattern Difficulty Levels / Type of Knitting
    • Why Jill Wolcott Knits Patterns are Expensive
    • Inside a Jill Wolcott Knits Pattern
    • How-To Videos: Learn from Jill
      • Why I Love . . . Techniques
    • Jill Wolcott Knits: A Fit Background
    • 2021-2022 Workshops With Jill Wolcott Knits
    • Overview of ASOG – A System of Grading
  • ABOUT
    • Designer’s Story
    • Calendar Events Schedule
    • Inside Scoop Subscribe & Newsletter Archives
    • Fundraising Projects
    • Jill Wolcott Knits
      • Jill Wolcott curriculum vitae
    • Techniques Library : What’s In There?
    • Abbreviations
    • Errata
    • Privacy Notice for Jill Wolcott Knits
  • CONTACT
  • My Account
  • Press

Jill Wolcott Knits logo

September 27, 2021 Leave a Comment

Stash Diving Then Finding What You Need to Know

I did some stash diving recently and I found yarn I bought probably 20 years ago in New York. It was mill ends, I think. It was wound into cakes and they were weighed and I was charged about $3 an ounce. Needless to say, I have no idea why I chose the colors I did, although I love them, or what I planned to do with the yarn. You’ve been there, perhaps? I can literally remember my heart racing over the yarn, but nothing else.

The yarn. In baggies because it immediately becomes a mess when not protected.

Stash Diving Productively

Since I first found the yarn (I actually always knew it was there), and today (which felt like more purposeful stash diving), I have started a project using this yarn. It was just to be a distraction, but I ended up wanting to perfect the project and make it for real, so I got the yarn out again.

I began putting the yarn cakes onto my office scale. Then I wondered what I needed to know. While I was doing that I wrote down the weight for each cake and put it into the baggie, which felt like a win. 

I measured off some yardage and weighed it so I could figure out the yardage in each cake that I actually have. There is a lot of this, so my brain started going to all the things I could make.

Getting Useful Information

I sat at my computer to figure out how much yardage I had overall. I broke the cakes into color lots to help me focus. Here are the stats I had as I started: 6 yards in 2 grams. 4 colors. $3 per ounce. Varying amounts of each color, not all colors would work together.

gramsoz$
6 yds=2g28.349521$3
85.048563$9
This is what I started with

I needed to figure out what ounces were to figure out the price of each cake (which is actually pretty irrelevant as the money was spent long ago!). But sometimes it is useful to seek one piece of information as a way of figuring out what else you want to know.

Really, I just want to know how much yarn I have. So I entered the weight of each cake into Excel, by color. I can now consider how I want to use the colors (and yardage). I set up an equation to figure out how many yards there are in each ball, then added them up. The table below shows how many yards and ounces I have in each color.

The Fabric
There are 10 plies, loosely plied together. Each ply appears to be 3-ply with one of the plies almost invisible lycra, which gives a slight boucle to the plies

Putting Information to Work

Yarngramsyardsounces$
Celery Silk/Lycra
952853.5$10.5
962883.5$10.5
872613$9
1103304$12
total388116413.5$40.5
Salmon Silk/Lycra
1003003.5$10.5
1033093.5$10.5
1303904.5$13.5
1203604$12
total453135916$48
Latte Silk/Lycra1143424$12
601802$6
total1143424$18
Peach Silk/Lycra832493$12
TOTAL1098329438.5$115.5

Now I knew what I had found in my stash diving and I could start to plan. I have a lot of this yarn! I am working it on a size 9 needle.

There is another batch of yarn in there. I believe it is merino, 20 plies of 2 plies each but without the lycra. I’ll calculate that when I get ready to do something with it.

Always Learning!

I’ve learned a bit while working on this, and the other piece I knit using the same stitch pattern. I copied the stitch pattern from a ready-to-wear (very fine gauge) sweater and experimented until I was satisfied with my result.

  1. To make spaced stitches without too much space, wrap the yarn for the YO back to front (like before the knit on JSSBO).
  2. To keep that dropped stitch (or in this case 3 of them) from becoming sloppy, on WS rows k1-b into each of the stitches, while dropping the YO.
  3. K1-b on WS rows of the stitch sitting between two stitches that will be dropped later (not the one referred to in #1 above). It will keep it tidy, but knitting into the back of the other two stitches makes them hard to undo.
  4. Place markers between each stitch multiple to make it easy to work even when reading subtitles.

Related Posts

  • Yarn Fiber Processing: The Basics
    Yarn Fiber Processing: The Basics
  • Yarn Fibers: Basic Helpful Information
    Yarn Fibers: Basic Helpful Information
  • Will This Yarn Work for This Project?
    Will This Yarn Work for This Project?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: $, amount, cakes, color, equation, grams, ounce, ounces, weighed, yardage, yards, yarn

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Jill’s Story

Teacher, Designer, with expertise to lead you where you want to go as a knitter/designer. Read More…

Blog Archive

Don’t Miss these Techniques!

drawing of how a button link is put together. design, writing, technique

Button Links

most of the shelves on the yarn wall

Color Play in Yarn

Photo of Jill's Rowena Iron and her Reliable Steamer Iron

Steam Block

lovely hand-wound center pull ball in Fingering 101, yarn, yarn ball, center-pull, technique

Hand Wound Center-Pull Ball

Popular in the Shop

  • Smallest Number of Stitches to Cast On A Moebius Suggested price: $3.00
  • Tulle Collar on dress form with taupe side out, a view of tope and bottom Latvian braid, and 3 vintage button links. Tulle Collar $12.00
  • Half-size dress form wearing dk version in pink and purple from Oink Pigments Clapham Trio: Junction, Road, & Common $20.00
  • ASOG 2023 Deposit-in-Full: Gou Pei Dress ASOG 2023 Registration Deposit-in-Full $100.00
  • ASOG 2023 Deposit-in-Payment: Gou Pei Dress with wings ASOG 2023 Registration Deposit-in-Payments $100.00 / 7 days

Stay Updated

Footer

About Jill

Teacher, Designer, with expertise to lead you where you want to go as a knitter/designer.

Pattern Availability

If you live outside of the US and Canada you can now purchase Jill Wolcott Knits PDF patterns directly through Payhip.

Stay Connected

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Ravelry

© 2023 Jill Wolcott Knits