I finally finished up a skein (note: not the entire amount of roving, maybe half) of the colonial wool – the yarn of Insane Craziness.
It’s a big skein, but I have no idea what the yardage is. How do people figure that out? Wind their skeins on a niddy-noddy and count?
Anyway, there’s not much knitting progress going on – still working on the tanks. I should really do some finishing, too – the licorice cardi and phildar jacket have just been sitting around. Hopefully there will be some more progress to report after tonight’s SnB!
How do people figure that out? Wind their skeins on a niddy-noddy and count?
Exactly :)
I have a 5-foot niddy-noddy (meaning that one wrap around all 4 arms = 5 feet). So what I do is wrap my yarn around the thing, count the number of strands (generally between two of the arms, and multiply that by 5, which gives the total number of feet. I then divide that by 3 (3 feet=1 yard), which gives me yardage
Formula:
wraps * 5 / 3 = total yardage
You could easily substitute the numbers for your niddy-noddy into that formula. Hope this helps :)
Cute yarn! I want to get spinning something like that with my wheel, but I’m tense or something. My yarn ends up tiny and nervous!
I just bought a niddy-noddy and use it just like Rose said. Mine’s a smaller one, though, since I’d probably knock myself unconscious with a large one. Before I had a niddy-noddy, I’d use my swift. I opened it up, locked it, and measured the circumference. Then I’d stick a bobbin on a dowel, secure the yarn to an arm of the swift, and spin. I’d keep my hand on the same part of the swift and count when I made one revolution. Then you just multiply the number of revolutions by the circumference. I like the niddy-noddy method better, as the yarn stays a little more even.