Does anyone speak knitting-Spanish?

[FingonTheValiant]

Hi,

My brother has very kindly sent me 3 lots of 100% alpaca to knit things for my baby with, but unfortunately he's sent it straight from Bolivia, and I have no idea what weight it is, what tension it'll knit to etc etc.

It says : CALIDAD Superior fine 25.5 micrones
-Brillo, caida, suavidad al tacto y lustre natural

• Fibra duradera, efecto termostatico , alto contenido de lanolina (impermeabilidad)

Thanks very much if anyone can help. I've had a go using google, but it doesn't completely make sense in the context of knitting.

(smug moment- he also sent me some alpaca clothes for the baby, which are very cute, and have llama motifs all over them I cant wait to see how they look on. Sadly, I'm not up to putting llamas in my patterns )

As a rough translation, most of it is just the usual marketing type stuff rather than anything that will help you with knitting

Quality = superior fine 25.5 microns

• bright, smooth to the touch, natural lustre
• Hardwearing fibre, effective thermostatics (can't think of English translation - means good at keeping you cool when hot and warm when cold), high content of lanolin (so good waterproof capabilities)

The microns thing is the weight of the yarn, but I don't actually think it helps with knitting as it seems to be the diameter of an individual fibre and the yarn is obviously a collection of several spun fibres.

I think the best thing you can do is take it to a shop ir rummage through whatever you have at home and compare it to 4ply, dk, chunky etc to see what you think it most closely matches, then take the needle and tension measurements from the label of those and knit up a tension square to see if it matches.

Ah ok, thanks for that. I wasn't sure if "superior fine" might be the name they give to a certain weight

If anything, it looks even finer than my 4ply, I'll find a 4ply pattern and do a tension square to see how it compares.

Thanks very much for helping!

What a lovely present!

Another way of estimating the yarn weight might be to calculate the WPI (wraps per inch) of the yarn, and work from there.

All you do is unwind a bit of the yarn from the skein, then wrap it around a ruler (not too tight, not too loose) with the wraps lying snugly next to each other, and count how many times the yarn wraps round in one inch. If it's easier, you could count the number of wraps in 2 or 3 inches, and then divide by 2 or 3 to give you an average figure. Then you refer to a gauge like this www.fiber2yarn.com/info/wpigauge.htm to check which yarn weight equates (roughly) to how many WPI. 16 WPI would be about a 4ply.

Hope this helps: enjoy your alpaca yarn!