How much yarn do I have?

Why do I need to measure yarn you ask?   Well, for several reasons actually.  Sure, I know what you are thinking.  You think I'm nuts because I'm worried about how much yarn I have when the skein tells me on the label.  BUT, what if you can't read the label or what if you only use part of a skein and now you have half a skein of Malabrigo but not exactly sure how much and therefore can't decide what your options are.  If you lost the label and don't remember the weight, you can check this post.

In all seriousness, my dilemma comes from my good friend Vickie who lives in China and sends me yarn occasionally.

Wonderful friend to have I can assure you, however I cannot read the labels so the yarn has been sitting for a while simply because I don't know the fiber, the weight or the yardage.  All very important things to know.   :)

I wanted to make a cat bed so I went digging through my stash and found this wonderful stripy yarn:

I did the wrap trick and it is a bulky yarn, but how much do I have?   

I generally do this one of two ways depending on how lazy I am.  

You can wrap the yarn around two objects like two feet from a kitchen chair:

With this method, you count the number of wraps.  In this case my chair is aprox 14" wide.  I wrapped it around about 230 times, give or take since the yarn was very knotted and my kids were in and out of the kitchen.  So let's do some math!   230 (wraps) x 14 (14" is the width of the chair legs)= 3220       Now, 3220/36 (36" in a yard)= 89 yards.  Remember this is approximate.  I always err on the side of a lower # because I'd rather have more yarn than I need than not enough.  

You could also buy a yarn counter but they can be expensive.    I went to Academy and high tailed it to the fishing department and purchased a Fishing Line Meter (click the link to see what it looks like).   The one from Academy was $14.99, either one is way better than $50 online for a yarn counter!   

Remember I said "approximately 230 wraps"?   In order to blog about this I brought my yarn wrapped chair up to my winder.  I hooked my fishing line meter to it and wound the yarn and wallah I have 276 feet which is 92 yards.  Pretty darn close to the 89 yards I came up with earlier.  

What is the weight of my yarn?

Being that I'm on a yarn diet, I've been hitting my stash yarn pretty heavily, which led me to the conundrum about the yarn from China.

First, I had to decide what weight my yarn was.  Luckily I found several charts that gave me general consensus of WPI.  (Wraps Per Inch).

You'll need the following:

1. ruler
2. pencil or another similar item that you can mark on
3. chart

Notch the inch measurement on your pencil or similar item.  Now wrap your yarn around the item and count how many times your yarn wraps around.  Make sure you aren't pulling too tight or the counts will be off.  And it doesn't matter what item you use as long as it is the same size (ie, it doesn't taper).  You are measuring how many wraps make an inch and not the length of the yarn.  It is kind of confusing, but it does work.  

So you see, that the grey yarn wrapped more than 18 times so it is indeed a lace weight yarn.  Confirmation!   

Too little too late

I have several friends that have or had problems with their husbands and all around the main problem is too little too late.

How does this make any sense in the brain of the male?   Your wife communicates that things are not going right and wants to talk about what changes can be made and they pay no attention.  Then after years and years of fighting about the same shit we are done talking.  We were annoyed to begin with, then we were angry and the next step is indifference.

I just don't understand it.

Waffle Iron Bacon?

I'll admit it.  I'm a freak for cool appliances.  I can't help myself.

Himself was watching some "man show" and they suggested cooking bacon in the waffle iron.  He immediately asked:  "How cool is that?".  I just looked at him and inwardly shook my head.  The only reason he knows where the stove is is because that's where he very occasionally hangs up the tea towel.    So now he's going to cook bacon in a waffle iron?  (No one reads this but if you do and you are a woman I'm sure you see the potential pitfalls of this bacon method.)

Fine.  He thinks it is cool, however he has shared the show and the idea with the two children who REALLY think this would be a good idea.  Hrumph.

So here we go.  They've been talking about this for several weeks and it has not once occurred to him to actually get the waffle iron out to try it.  The kids will not let up so here I go.  Mind you, I know how this is going to turn out, but the willing (if reluctant) participant that I am, I figure what the heck.  It is only going to be a lot of cleaning.  What the heck.  (I might add that Himself has something to do this morning so he isn't even here to witness which means he'll still think this is a good idea)

That is two slices of bacon cut up with scissors.

Pros:

1. Cooked the bacon evenly
2. kept the splatter to a minimum
3. kids thought it was fun

Cons:

1. only two at a time
2. kids may think it is fun but it really isn't a participatory sport
3. grease pools in the waffle iron
4. waffle irons are made for waffles and thus there is no spout to pour out the grease

I was so concerned with the grease spilling out of my waffle iron that I forgot to take a photo at the end when the bacon was finished.  

The below method is still better I think.  I also have a microwave thingy that is nice but when I'm making bacon for everyone then I use the pan.  If it is just me, I use the microwave thingy.

The waffle iron has been emptied and wiped out thoroughly, but is still not clean.  *sigh*   Maybe I'll make some bacon flavored waffles.

Tomorrow Eggs in a sandwich maker!