A knitting problem solved

I mention in my post about recycling yarn that I had worries about the yardage I had available to make the Must Have Cardigan. I have spent the best part of a week worrying about whether I had enough yarn; I was almost paralysed by it. In my head, I'd made the decision to make the sweater with the recycled yarn and I didn't want to use anything else.

All the indicators were, though, that I didn't have enough - after all, how does 1kg of yarn drop to 760g? My memory says that I'd actually run out of yarn making the original sweater and had to buy extra, but that made even less sense if the original balls were the 50g they claimed to be. So I isolated several skeins of yarn when I rolled the hanks into balls and they turned out to be between 40 and 45g each. Cleckheaton's website told me that each 50g ball should be 71 metres long, but I'd reached the point where I couldn't trust them.

Reluctantly, I swatched one of the DK yarns in my stash, but it was too fine. It made gauge, but had no body.

Finally, I unburdened myself on the Yarn Addicts (the closest thing I have to a Stitch-n-Bitch) and, thanks to Fluff, I have my answer. She kindly found me a converter: http://girlfromauntie.com/tech/convert/ You plug in your stitches per inch and your wraps per inch and it gives you a result e.g. 5/10.

I have 760g of wool. On the 4.5mm needles specified in the pattern, it gives me a gauge of 19 stitches to 4 inches, or 4.75 stitches to the inch and 10 wraps per inch. Per the calculator it comes to:

"Approximately 2.105 metres per gram, 105 m per 50g or 115 yds per 1.75 oz
760 g is equivalent to 1600 m or 1749.8 yds
DK-worsted weight (10-16 wpi): 5 to 5.5 spi in stockinette
All calculations, wpi and gauge approximate."

Yay!

I've had this yarn lurking in the stash for at least 4 years, waiting for a suitable project. It was too good to throw out, which is why I frogged the original sweater. Now it's got a project to go to!

- Pam