67,000 Yards - Glue up problems solved!

[Bill_L]

My wife, an avid knitter, asked me to help her with an excel spreadsheet the other day. She was tracking her 'stash' (that is all the skeins of yarn she has), I simply formatted her rows of 'stash' into a nice table and while I was at it, I added an autosum to one of the columns. It showed me that she has over 67,000 yards of yarn!!! Granted, she has accumulated the yarn over the past 15 years of so. But it did make me wonder...what's the equivalent board feet to yards of yarn? Has anyone dared to do that calculation (and survive)? My calculat!on was at least some new clamps.

Now, I am the reason I don't have dust collection or a new ROS or any of the other items in the shop. I just can't pull the trigger. But today I did and got a pair of Bessey 31" parallel clamps. I have struggled mightily with glue-ups using my pony clamps and a few other sets of clamps. I was so happy with how my glue up went today. I made some hickory and purpleheart coasters. Those are 2 very hard woods and just doing a dry glue up, without really using a lot of strength, I was blown away by the clamping pressure and the ease in which you could use them. I actually glued up 2 sets of coasters (~4x17 - 14 pieces of wood) at once. I'm really excited to make my next chess board as that has been challenging. I've been happy with the boards but the glue-up has been extremely stressful!

Nice equipment makes the 'work' so much more enjoyable...

** Note - I do not begrudge my wife one bit for her yarn stash and it is not the reason I splurged on some clamps. We each have found something we enjoy and are extremely fortunate that we have been able to enjoy our hobby. It's funny how, like woodworking, she can find her knitting mistakes that nobody else would even notice.

 

[Mike Davis]

I used to design woven tapestries, each one had over 15 miles of yarn.
Automation is great!

 

[Oka]

38 miles of yarn....... you need to buy more wood I am sure you do not have enough ......

or......201,000ft of yarn

 

[tvrgeek]

So, not only do I have to deal with 500 colors of cross-stitch thread, I have to make a set of cases to hold them all.

 

[Roy G]

Using an analogy to wood, when she needs a particular yarn does she spend several minutes or hours looking for it only to find it's too short and she has to buy another skein?

Roy G

 

[Echd]

Taking some liberties here, as I am no knitting enthusiast:

The most common yarn as far as I know is #4. While diameter isn't particularly consistent, wraps per inches gives us an estimation. According to google #4 is 9-12 wpi. Let's split that in the middle and call it 10.5 wpi. Let's round it off while we're making assumptions and say the yarn is 0.095 inches in width. A single linear yard at 0.095 inches is 0.26 cubic inches assuming reasonably consistent cylindrical shape, or 0.0018 board feet. So your wife has around 120.6 board feet of yarn.

Given how much wood you likely have laying around, I do not recommend sharing this figure, lest she thinks she may need to match your stockpile.

 

[Bill_L]

Using an analogy to wood, when she needs a particular yarn does she spend several minutes or hours looking for it only to find it's too short and she has to buy another skein?

Roy G

She can spend HOURS looking for yarn! Though every time she knits, she weighs the yarn so she knows how much was used and what's left. It's quite involved. I didn't think that knitting was all that involved - boy was I mistaken! There's different diameter needles and how tight you hold the yarn determines your stitches per inch. It's crazy. I'm barely scratching the surface...

 

[Bill_L]

Taking some liberties here, as I am no knitting enthusiast:

The most common yarn as far as I know is #4. While diameter isn't particularly consistent, wraps per inches gives us an estimation. According to google #4 is 9-12 wpi. Let's split that in the middle and call it 10.5 wpi. Let's round it off while we're making assumptions and say the yarn is 0.095 inches in width. A single linear yard at 0.095 inches is 0.26 cubic inches assuming reasonably consistent cylindrical shape, or 0.0018 board feet. So your wife has around 120.6 board feet of yarn.

Given how much wood you likely have laying around, I do not recommend sharing this figure, lest she thinks she may need to match your stockpile.

Sorry, Echd...I didn't have time to read your response. I'll try to when I have some time .

 

[Linc H]

I bet she doesn't get a "new tool" every time there is a Knitting Project. I would consider yourself winning at this point. Get her some new needles that should justify a new DC system. I'll get the couch ready if that doesn't go over well. coasters look awesome BTW.