Cruising through my usual reading list this morning with my coffee, I ran across this survey, linked from the SOAR blog. I took a moment to fill it out, and thought others might be interested as well.

In household news, I’d like to take a moment to state that the LG dishwasher is simply no Bosch. We had a Bosch, the Bosch was our friend, and the LG we have now is simply no Bosch. For those of you considering dishwashers, Bosch. Bosch, Bosch, Bosch. The LG was supposed to have all the same things the Bosch did and was rated similarly by reviewers. It is only similar in the sense that one could say a Ford Festiva is similar to a Corvette in that they both feature two doors and a hatchback.

Anyway, though, in yarn-related content, I did finish up that 2-ply merino from the dyed odds and ends I had lying around…

I love that photo above — look, there’s the lazy kate and that jumps right out at you, but look closely: chain-plied tussah silk lying under some other tussah silk I haven’t spun yet, a toppled bottle of ibuprofen, the “Desire” sample wound into a ball behind it waiting for me to think of something to use it in, a few Bryspun straights in the front, and the Addi Turbos draped over the edge of the shelf.

I don’t think I ever claimed to be super-orderly. Well, not recently, at any rate.

I ended up lazily plying the orangey yarn on the Victoria. It has to be lazy plying on the Victoria because with 15:1 as a top ratio, it’s slow — definitely in the “idle hand fidget while watching TV” range of things. Which is, of course, exactly what I was doing.

I’m increasingly a fan of this “hanging on the deck railing” shot. Now, to those of you who’ve commented that the step-by-step process photos are useful, I need to come clean. There are a few steps in here that I never think to photograph — but I will do so on an upcoming project, as there’s important information in those steps!

Of course, perhaps my yarn porn is becoming formulaic. Here’s the “from just below, with the sky for reference” shot.

And the closeup…

And I like to call this the “truth in advertising” shot. Here’s where I point out the lazy waylaka maneuvers that are obvious in this skein — thick and thin bits, all over the place. But, you know, what the heck. Yes, it really is that saturated a pink-and-orange, too.

Oh yes, and the specs! There was a total of 36 grams of the 2 different colours of merino, seen here:

After washing, the 2-ply yarn is 25 wpi, and the fiber yielded 730 yards. So, 730 yards from 36 grams is 20.277777etc. yards per gram, times 28.35 grams in an ounce is 574.875 yards in an ounce, times 16 ounces in a pound is 9,198 yards per pound. So this is a pretty light, lofty 25 wpi. 36 grams is about 1.26 ounces.

If you were to compare this to some popular laceweight merino yarns out there…

• Morehouse Merino Lace, 220 yards / 1 oz (actually fingering weight)
• Skacel Merino Lace, 1375 yards / 100g /6237 ypp, 28 wpi
• Artisan Lace, 300 m (325 yards) /20g = 7439 ypp
• Sharon Miller’s Merino Lace yarn, 375 m / 25g = 7439 ypp

…this yarn is weighing in with more yards per pound than any of them, but it’s fatter than the last 3, and most similar in grist to the Morehouse Merino Lace, which is actually fingering weight in my book… though of course, now I can’t find a wpi reference for it anywhere.

And of course, I needed bright orange-pink laceweight merino knitting yarn right now like I needed another hole in my head. I’ll probably destash it eventually.

NEWS FLASH! Abby Proves Human After All!

I shouldn’t ever do math, or look at my log book, before the second cup of coffee. *ONE* of the chunks of merino weighed 38 grams. The two of them together? 74 grams, or 2.6 ounces. This is actually a huge relief for me, because I really couldn’t wrap my brain around how this had come to the ypp that it did at the wpi that it is. I was sitting around thinking, “That’s like twice the yield I’d expect,” when it dawned on me.