Weaving | Through The Yarny Curtain

An Inkle Weaving Experiment

One of the FAQs inkle weaving newbies always have is how to figure out how wide their finished band will be. The advice given generally is that it varies from one yarn to another and one weaver to another. You’ve got to keep records to see what works for you.

I recently saw another person ask this question and this time I got inspired. If different weavers used the same yarn and the same draft, much variation would there be between the width of the finished bands? So I designed an experiment to try to figure that out. I’m looking for volunteers to participate!

In October 2016, I went to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival (SAFF) with several friends. A subset of those who went are members of the monthly spinning group I attend. We found a good deal on an unfinished Kromski Fantasia and split the cost so that we could have a spinning wheel to use for teaching people to spin when they stop by our group or for members of our group to borrow to learn to wheel spin. I brought the wheel home to finish it.

I decided to finish the wheel with Danish Oil. I also decided to apply Danish Oil to my 15″ Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom. I started working on both in December 2016. I applied clear Danish oil to the wheel and dark walnut to the loom. I applied three coats, waiting at least 24 hours between coats and making sure that they were dry to the touch before applying the next coat. I was trying to finish them before Orlando Distaff Day 2017, which was on the first Saturday of 2017. I signed up to do a wheel assembly demo and planned to bring all the parts of the Fantasia with me and assemble it at the event.

Early on the Friday morning before Distaff Day, I applied the fourth and final coat of Danish Oil. That Friday night and into Saturday morning it POURED. We’d had no rain for weeks and it felt like the sky had saved all the rain we should have gotten and dumped it all at once. The pieces of the loom and wheel were on the workbench out in the garage, which is where I’d been working on this project. The garage is not climate control. When I got up on Saturday morning, the loom and wheel were both tacky to the touch. In fact, they were tackier than they had been when I applied the fourth coat on Friday morning. Obviously, there was no way I could bring them to Distaff Day!

I left the loom and wheel on the workbench for 3 or 4 weeks. They were still tacky. I brought them into the house, and laid them out around the house on any spare flat surface. I figured they would dry better in the climate-controlled house. Every month or so, I checked the pieces and they were still tacky, though it did seem as though they were slowly improving.

In the spring and summer of 2017, I took some woodworking classes, including one on finishing wood projects. I asked the teachers about my problem. They shook their heads. In all likelihood, the reason for this problem was that the earlier coats weren’t cured as well as I thought they were. I could continue to let the pieces to sit. I could try to wipe them down with mineral spirits, which is the solvent for Danish Oil.

Since the fall of 2017 was so crazy here — Hurricane Irma left us with no power and no water / water restrictions for a week, my mother-in-law’s health declining, my husband getting laid off — I did not think about the loom and wheel pieces at all. When I checked them in late December, for the first time in months, I discovered that they were slightly sticky, but not so much so that you could see my fingerprint on the surface. I decided to try wiping them down with mineral spirits to see what happened. I did just the pieces of the stand for the rigid heddle loom. I figured that was the easiest thing to replace if the mineral spirits ruined the pieces rather than improving them. I wiped the pieces down three times, letting the pieces dry in between. Then I had something else to do and forgot about them.

When we came home from our Christmas in New Jersey, my husband finished the project he’d left on the workbench when he unexpectedly left 3 weeks earlier. Then he asked me what projects I have to do. Due to the high humidity of our summers, woodworking is a winter task here and he knew that I’d been saving up some projects, waiting for the weather to co-operate. I checked the three pieces of the loom stand and found that they were no longer sticky. The mineral spirits worked! For the past two days, I’ve been working on the remaining loom pieces and the wheel pieces.

This morning, I wiped down the pieces with mineral spirits for the fourth time. The repeated coats of mineral spirits seem to be doing their work! It’s been humid the last two days and I think that this has caused more of the oil to come to the surface. Despite this, the pieces are clearly improving and becoming less sticky overall. For some of the pieces, this fourth coat should be the last coat I need to apply. I will need to flip a couple of the pieces over so I can do the back. My previous despair and fear that I’d ruined two expensive pieces of equipment have given way to hope. I think this is going to work!

An Inventory

This year, we spent Christmas with my in-laws. My mother-in-law is in poor health. She has cancer and then got pneumonia. She was in the hospital for 2.5 weeks, moving to rehab on the Tuesday after Christmas. For a while, we thought she wasn’t going to make it to Christmas, but she did. For the moment she’s stable, but the cancer is advanced and at this point we count each day as a gift. During the time I visited with her, we talked a lot about her life and what has been important to her and what is important to her now. “None of that stuff matters to me anymore,” she said, referring to her physical possessions. What matters to her is speaking with and spending time with her people — her children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, friends.

In November, my husband was laid off from his job. This was something we’ve expected for some time, so we’ve saved money and he got a severance payment, so we are not in an immediate financial crisis. He spent most of the last six weeks with his mother and is now starting to look for a job. We don’t know how long it will take for him to find a job, so we need to manage carefully so that the money we have lasts for as long as possible. As a result, buying yarn and fiber are definitely off the list! I must craft from stash.

These two factors have me thinking a lot about what really matters and about how I want to spend my time. I am feeling the need to let go of some things and consolidate others. I want to spend more time on my fiber pursuits. Over the last few years, I’ve acquired an astonishing variety of fiber books, tools, and supplies. I’ve acquired things at a much quicker clip than I’ve crafted them. Once upon a time, I kept Ravelry up-to-date, but I fell out of the habit. I feel as though I don’t really know what I have anymore and to make plans, I need to know what I have. It’s time for an inventory.

Fortunately, inventorying is in my blood. For most of my growing up years, my father worked in stock rooms. When I was very small, he worked in the warehouse of a local clothing store. When I was 11, we moved to a different state where he had a new job as the manager of a hospital stock room. My sister and I went to a private school in the same town as the hospital, which was a 30-minute drive from where we lived. We commuted with my father. Since we got out of school a couple of hours before he got out of work, we spent those hours at the hospital. We usually stayed in the cafeteria, working on our homework. Sometimes, especially on days when they were short-staffed, we hung out in the stock room, working on homework and occasionally answering the phone to take orders from the floors while the employees pulled and delivered the needed items. Twice a year, on a Sunday, the stock room closed for inventory. All the stock room employees came in, along with people in other administrative departments, and my sister and I. We counted every single item on every single shelf, balancing the inventory against the computer.

I started my personal inventory process before Christmas. I started by consolidating — putting away all the random yarn and projects scattered around the house. It’s a lot easier to do inventory when everything is where it belongs. It’s a little scary to flash my stash, but here’s the pix so you can see where I am now.

These bins are the main stash collection. Each of these is a 40 quart bin. One of the bins holds finished projects waiting to be gifted, but the rest are full of yarn and fiber. I sorted the fiber by type (wool, plant fiber, blends, batts, etc). There’s so much wool that it takes up 8 bins and I’ve alphabetized the wool by breed. I separated the yarn by weaving yarn and knitting / crocheting yarn. Then I sorted each of those categories size of the yarn.

These shelves hold the yarns made from plant fibers. It’s mostly cotton, but there’s some linen and bamboo in there also.

These batts have been living in this suitcase since I bought them last April because I can’t fit them anywhere else.

This pile consists mostly of raw fleece, waiting for me to wash and process it. There’s also a couple of bags of yarn that I haven’t put away. That’s my four-harness, 28″ weaving width LeClerc Fanny counterbalance loom under all that fleece.

This bin holds raw fleece in smaller quantities. There’s a variety of breeds in this bin, but no more than a pound from any one fleece.

These boxes hold fleeces that I bought and had processed by mills. I believe there’s three fleeces total in here. They are sitting on top of my four harness, 22″ weaving width Dorset direct tie-up loom.

These bins and the hamper on top of them hold WIPs. A couple of years ago, I conquered all my WIPs, but now I have a new pile.

These are smaller bins, about twice the size of a shoebox. They hold a couple of WIPs, including two or three that only need blocking, but mostly they are projects waiting for me to cast on. I matched yarn to patterns and sometimes the needles are with them also.

Finally, this is my fabric collection. Last spring and summer, I took sewing lessons. I’ve mostly sewed pillowcases, which we send to the pediatric oncology ward where my cousin works, for nurses to distribute to the kids. I actually have a lot more fabric than this, but everything I bought for pillowcases is stored at my mother’s house. This is everything I have at my house.

I have complicated feelings about all this stash. I’ll be writing more about it as I continue the inventory process. My goal for the next week is to get Ravelry back up-to-date. I’ve downloaded the spreadsheet of my Ravelry stash as a starting point. I’ll write an update next week, to share my progress and next goal.

Crafting CPH

“Why would you spend $25 on yarn to knit a pair of socks when you can buy a dozen pairs at Walmart for maybe $10?” Every crafter I know has been asked some variant of this question. Usually the crafter stumbles through a response, defending the reasons she or he chooses to work with fiber. Afterwards, the crafter might rant on Facebook or Ravelry about the latest inquiry they’ve gotten along this line and how non-crafters just don’t get it.

There are many wonderful reasons to craft with fiber; Franklin Habit’s recent blog post on Lion Brand Yarns site provides a far more eloquent explanation than I’m able to write and the comments on that post share many personal perspectives on the question. I believe it is valuable to share our reasons for crafting with fiber. Maybe you’ll inspire someone to pick up needles or hooks and yarn!

But perhaps you don’t want to share your personal perspective with the latest random stranger to comment on your work. Or perhaps you have a relative or co-worker who has commented multiple times and discounts the reasons you have given. For these circumstances, I propose the kind of practical, emotion-free response the Inquisitor seems to require: the Crafting Cost Per Hour (CCPH).

The Inspiration

I read Your Money or Your Life (Amazon affiliate link, Summary on author’s website) a couple of decades ago, when I was in my early 20s. The book offers a 9-step method for transforming our relationship to money. The book starts with the idea that we exchange our time for money. One step is to calculate exactly how much you are paid per hour. This amount isn’t the hourly figure your employer uses to calculate your pay. You add into your weekly hours the time you spent on work-related tasks like commuting and you deduct from your weekly gross salary the costs related to your job, then calculate your actual hourly rate based on these new figures.

For example, let’s say you work 40 hours per week and are paid $10 per hour for a weekly gross salary of $400. Perhaps your commute is 1/2 hour each way on public transit and you pay $80 per month = $20 per week for a monthly transit pass, which you use only to get to and from work. These commuting expenses and time mean that your weekly gross salary is reduced to $380 and your work hours increased to 45 hours per week. Your actual hourly wage is $380 / 45 hours = $8.44. The summary link above has a list of other work-related time and expenses that you can contemplate if you wish to calculate your own hourly wage.

In the Your Money or Your Life method, once you calculate your hourly wage, you then divide every expense you have by that hourly wage to determine how many hours of your life you traded for that item. Then you evaluate that item by asking yourself if the number of hours you traded for that item are as valuable as the item itself.

While I have not consistently followed the steps of Your Money or Your Life, some of the ideas have stayed in the back of my mind and, when I saw yet another post about a Cost of Sock Inquisitor, I was inspired to calculate what each hour of craft costs.

Basic Crafting Cost Per Hour

If you’ve purchased finished yarn and then knit, crocheted, or woven it into finished object, calculating the cost per hour is straightforward. Simply divide the cost of the yarn by the number of hours it took (or will take) you to finish the project(s) you will knit with that yarn.

$25 for sock yarn / 20 hours to knit socks = CCPH of $1.25 / hour

Some people try to convince you that spinning is even more expensive than knitting or crocheting. However, when looked at from the perspective of CCPH, that isn’t necessarily the case. If you purchased a 4 ounce braid of spinning fiber for $30, spun and plied it, then knit it into a pair of socks, your CCPH is lower than knitting socks with purchased yarn.

$30 for fiber / (8 hours to spin + 2 hours to ply + 20 hours to knit) = $30 / 30 hours = CCPH of $1.00 / hour

If you mostly just want to respond to Inquisitors, you can use the basic formula and create a rule of thumb for the projects you most commonly knit in public. Maybe your carry around project is always socks and you know about how long it takes you to knit a pair. Calculate your CCPH once for each type of project and you’re done.

Beyond the Basics

I know that many of you profess to not like math and for you, the basic crafting cost per hour will be sufficient to respond to the Inquisitor. Feel free to skip this section. But I happen to love math, and there are many knitters who love math also. Perhaps you might decide to calculate the CCPH for every project you do, just for fun.

We all know that our fiber crafting projects cost more than just the yarn or fiber for that project. We have costs for tools, classes, storage. We also know that the benefits are more than just the finished project. We spend time with friends while we craft. We watch less TV, or TV time is productive because we are crafting, not just sitting. These costs and benefits are variable, personal, and more difficult in the accounting. However, these types of variable and personal costs are considered in the Your Money or Your Life method, and I believe we can consider them in our context also. I’m only going to explore two factors — tools and time — in depth, but use this as inspiration to think carefully and creatively about the costs and benefits associated with your fiber crafting!

Tools

If we choose good quality tools, fit to the task, they will last for a long time. So how do we account for them in calculating CCPH. I have two thoughts on this, depending on if they are small tools (needles, hooks, etc) or large tools (looms, spinning wheels, etc). For small tools, I’m inclined to include them in the cost of the first project I make with them. If I buy a second US 1 needle so I can knit my socks on two circulars, the cost of that needle can be added to the cost of that sock project. From then on, the use of that tool is free.

Large tools need to be depreciated in some way. Pick the time period over which to depreciate the tool — a year, two, three, four, five — whatever you prefer. Divide the cost of the tool by the number of years to determine your cost per year. Whenever you use the tool, keep track of how long you use it. Keep a running total of the number of hours you use it as well as the number of hours used on a specific project. At the end of the year, divide the cost per year by the number of hours you used the tool that year to determine your hourly cost for use of the tool. For each project using that tool, multiply the number hours of use by the calculated hourly cost of the tool. Once you come to the end of your depreciation period, use of the tool is free.

I made a quick little Google spreadsheet to illustrate the depreciation of my spinning wheel, a Kromski Fantasia. I bought the wheel in 2013 and I’m not going back to look at all the projects I’ve done on it. I’m just using two projects as an illustration here. My first thought was to depreciate the wheel over 5 years. Here’s what that spreadsheet looks like:

Even with the use of a relatively expensive tool, and a modest amount of use of the tool (less than 1.5 hours / week), each project’s cost per hour of crafting is modest. What happens if we decide to depreciate the spinning wheel over just one year, still with the same modest use of the wheel?

While the cost per project and CCPH at least triple, the CCPH is still incredibly low. On a per hour basis, depreciating the spinning wheel over one year with less than 1.5 hours use in a week, costs about the same as going to a movie in the theater. Once I’ve finished depreciating the wheel and the use of it no longer counts in my cost per project, the CCPH of my spinning projects will be pennies.

Obviously, this calculation will vary wildly depending on the price of the tool, the time period you choose for depreciation, and your actual use of the tool after you purchase it. But that’s to be expected. I’m just offering a way to capture this cost on a per project basis. And perhaps a useful analysis to justify the purchase of your next loom or spinning wheel!

Time

I think the total time for a project can and should be increased to account for the other benefits we receive from pursuing our fiber crafts. This might sound like cheating, because you will be double-counting time, but let me see if I can convince you otherwise. I can knit or crochet or spin or weave in a variety of circumstances. I might be at home alone, doing nothing but knitting. I might be home with my husband, watching TV in the evening. I might be in public, doing a demo where I am specifically looking to interact with people and explain what I’m doing. I might be in public, waiting for an appointment to start or flying on a plane. I might be hanging out with friends, at knit night, at a retreat, or in a cabana by the river (like I was yesterday).

Each of these scenarios offers me benefits that aren’t specifically related to my fiber crafting. Time that might otherwise be wasted feels productive. Friendships grow, providing a sense of emotional well-being. I get some down time and to be outside. I don’t have to be fiber crafting to get these benefits — I could hang out in a cabana by the river with friends and just chat all day without doing fiber crafts at the same time. Fiber-crafting while also accruing these other benefits is multi-tasking. Therefore, the time should count more than once — the first time it counts as time accrued for the finished product and the next time it counts as time accrued for process.

In addition, double (or perhaps triple or quadruple) counting time builds into our equation, and our response to the Inquisitor, all the very personal reasons why we knit. We can give what sounds like a practical, emotion-free, by-the-numbers response while simultaneously honoring rather than denying the real soul of our work. We don’t have to share all those details with the Inquisitor — that would defeat an important purpose of the CCPH calculation — but we know we’ve included, rather than denied, what is truly important to us.

The amount of time to count for these extra benefits is up to you. If I’m waiting for an appointment or knitting while watching TV, I’m unlikely to double-count all that time. In these instances, I’m turning otherwise unproductive time into productive time by knitting. This time is tied very closely to the product rather than the process. It’ll take 20 hours to knit these socks, regardless of circumstances, and I’ve just captured a particular piece of those 20 hours. In the case of knitting while watching TV, did I turn the TV on as background for my knitting? Or would I watch TV anyway? Either way, I’m not getting a huge amount of value out of the TV watching. Maybe I’ll double-count 25% or 50% of the time.

On the other hand, when I spend a day fiber-crafting in a cabana by the river, I am receiving multiple benefits above and beyond the fiber work. I’m outside, which is a huge benefit in and of itself. I’m with friends. Maybe I should triple-count all the time I’m crafting at the river. And even when I’m not actively fiber crafting, because I’m grilling burgers or eating, I still count that time towards my project because I wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the fiber.

The important thing here is to honestly account for the benefits you are receiving from the fiber crafting. You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone else. You just need to be honest with yourself.

A New Response

Now you’re ready for the next time someone asks, “Why would you spend $25 on yarn to knit a pair of socks when you can buy a dozen pairs at Walmart for maybe $10?”

Rather than rolling your eyes and explaining all your personal reasons for knitting, try this: “You’re looking at it through the wrong lens. It’s true that I don’t have to knit. I do it as a hobby that brings me great joy. And when viewed that way, it is incredibly inexpensive, especially when compared to other entertainment. This yarn might cost $25, but it’s going to take me 20 hours to knit these socks, which means I’m paying only $1.25 per hour of entertainment. What other entertainment is so inexpensive?”

How Many Projects?

I’m taking a time out from packing to write a quick post. Last November, I registered attend PlyAway, a spinning conference hosted by PLY Magazine. My friend Lorelle was planning to go too, but by the time registration came around, she knew she wouldn’t be able to attend. “I’d love to go to fiber events with you,” she lamented, “but work and other financial obligations keep me from going. Why aren’t there any local retreats?”

“We can make our own retreat,” I responded. And so we have. This weekend, six of us our staying in a condo on the beach. One or two others are driving in for the day on Saturday. I’m the only one who knows everyone going. Everyone else knows no more than two others and some (including Lorelle) don’t know anyone other than me. We have no firm schedule. Everyone’s bringing their projects. Via e-mail, everyone shared what they are bringing and what they’d like to learn. Fredi’s bringing unwashed fleece and will show us how to wash it. She’s bringing her drum carder and hand combs so we can make rolags if we wish. I’m bringing all my acid dyes and equipment for dyeing, including bare yarn. Dawn’s bringing bare fiber. Dawn, Nancy, and I are all bringing our rigid heddle looms. Shellee and Lorelle have never woven before and want to try it out. Everyone except Shellee spins; she’s going to try the spindles Nancy and Dawn are bringing. Everyone else is also bringing their spinning wheels. Shellee will show us her unique method of knitting. She speeds along so fast, her hands are a blur.

So now I’m packing, and I must consider the first question — the one a fiber crafter always asks before she packs anything else — which projects shall I bring? How many is too many.

I’m definitely bringing the current project on my rigid heddle loom.

I’ll bring yarn to warp the loom again, in case I finish this project. I have at least 3 spinning projects in progress, but I’m only going to bring the Three Feet of Sheep with me.

I really run into trouble with the knitting projects. Shall I bring the Bubble Baby Blanket that I haven’t worked on in months, but is part of my Detention OWL for the Harry Potter Knitting / Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC)?

Or the Begonia Swirl Shawl that I started months ago to replace the one that was accidentally felted?

Of course I’m going to bring the Cloisters Shawl I only started working on a week and a half ago!

I need to bring some crochet. Because I must have all the things, right? I’ll probably just toss some cotton and a hook into my bag so I can whip up some quick dishcloths. ~~Maybe 2~~, ~~no 3~~, ~~who am I kidding 4~~, ~~better make it 5~~, seriously 6 skeins is the limit.

Am I bringing enough? Better toss in just one more thing — I don’t want to run out of projects.

Oh! Shellee is bringing blocking mats and wires. I need to bring the 3 shawls I have laying about that just need blocking!