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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I have a 100g skein of lace weight yarn that I need to divide into two 50g halves. Is there a shortcut or magic trick I can use, other than to hand wind, weigh, wind, weigh until I get it right?

I do have a ball winder and a swift, but I'm afraid if I take the ball off the winder - or the skein off the swift - to weigh, that I won't be able to get them back on ...
 
I'll be interested in the responses. I tried once to take the yarn off the swift to weigh and ended up with a total mess.

ETA. On thinking, I'll bet if I had tied the yarn like it was when I got it, I could have gotten it back on with no problem.
 
I'll be interested as well. I weighed my whole yarn ball then wound until what was left weighed half the original amount. But I still had one bigger than the other when I finished.....go figure!!
 
You can wind the yarn on the ball winder, but do not take it off. If using a swift, you can take that skein off very carefully to weigh it; or you could hand wind the whole skein into a ball, then you can rewind it on the ball winder and weigh the ball.
 
Weigh the beginning amount. Knit until you are close to half gone, then begin to weigh unused yarn to find half way point. Unless you're using 2 strands at once, then that method wouldn't work.
 
I wind the entire hank into one cake first.
Weigh the cake and calculate half.
Starting with the outside yarn, wind off half. Unfortunately you do need to keep weighing but you're only going to weigh the first cake you made...several times.
When you're done, you'll have a new cake on the winder and the original one, equal weights and ready to go. This is so much easier than trying to weigh the partially unwound hank.
Be sure to use a good scale that measures tenths of a gram. I bought a nice little scale on Amazon for less than $20 and it is much more accurate than my Cuisinart kitchen scale.
 
Soxtrot1 said:
I'll be interested as well. I weighed my whole yarn ball then wound until what was left weighed half the original amount. But I still had one bigger than the other when I finished.....go figure!!
The same thing happened to me. I wound the whole skein then put the ball on a scale and wound until the scale said 50 grams. The result were two different sized balls and neither were 50 grams
 
MaggieBelize said:
Awesome! That's how I'll do it, thanks! (Perfect timing, too, I was just cueing up my audiobook to get started.)
It is interesting to see how an idea written differently will ring a bell with a questioner. Of course we are not sure exactly what you will do. The idea of winding the entire ball first was given three times.
 
jinx said:
It is interesting to see how an idea written differently will ring a bell with a questioner. Of course we are not sure exactly what you will do. The idea of winding the entire ball first was given three times.
Either that or it's just an Internet timing thing, jinx. We may have been typing answers at the same time. I've noticed that if I don't back out of the post, whatever I've written hangs out until I go into another section. I'm not an internet expert, just noted the delay.
 
I would put the skein on my swift and wind it all into a ball. Then, using a niddy noddy I would re skein half of the length as given on the original skein band, then use the swift again to wind this part into a second ball. Neither may weigh 50g but they should both be the same length.
 
Discussion starter · #19 ·
Sorry, I saw the post from DesertPurl first, didn't see the similar suggestions from Oldlacer55 and jinx until after I posted my reply and the screen refreshed.

Anyway, these suggestions worked well. The skeins were really "sticky" so I'm glad I used the swift and ball winder. And the first skein had a mill knot at 50 grams, what are the odds?

My two skeins were different weights, and the weights were different when I weighed the unwound skein than when I weighed the wound cake. I think (as suggested) I need a scale that weighs tenths of grams rather than whole grams like the scale I have.
 
MaggieBelize said:
Sorry, I saw the post from DesertPurl first, didn't see the similar suggestions from Oldlacer55 and jinx until after I posted my reply and the screen refreshed.

Anyway, these suggestions worked well. The skeins were really "sticky" so I'm glad I used the swift and ball winder. And the first skein had a mill knot at 50 grams, what are the odds?

My two skeins were different weights, and the weights were different when I weighed the unwound skein than when I weighed the wound cake. I think (as suggested) I need a scale that weighs tenths of grams rather than whole grams like the scale I have.
No need to apologize. I find it interesting how often it happens that an idea is suggested time and time again. Someone else words the same suggestion differently and the questioner has an ah-ha moment. That wasn't the case in this instance. Hate those knots. At least with winding you can weed them out.
 
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