So you want to use some of your handspun for a project. How do you figure out if it will work? Here are a few things I did to determine if the handspun yarn in my stash would work to make The Most Picot Shawl which calls for 880 yards of fingering weight yarn and a 4.00 mm hook. So I looked through my stash for a fine yarn and had enough yardage.

Then I compared the yards per pound (ypp) of my commercial yarn and handspun yarn. My handspun yarn is 1600 ypp, and the commercial yarn is 2000 ypp. That is some difference. So did have me a little concerned. Although the handspun was denser, the shawl worked up beautifully. It feels a little more cozy and substantial than the commercial yarn shawl.

I also put the commercial yarn (magenta yarn) into the 4.00 mm needle/hook gauge tool to see how the yarn fills the hole. Then compare that to how my handspun (natural white) yarn fills the hole.

Visually the handspun yarn fills the hole less. Because it didn’t fill the gauge tool, I felt confident it would work up nicely. Why would a yarn that’s denser be thinner than the yarn that is lighter weight? It’s all in the spinning. Most commercial yarns are spun with lots of air, so they are soft and fluffy in the hand. I spun my handspun yarn in a worsted style. That means I pinched the air out of the fibers as I spun.

Another aspect to consider is the number of plies the yarn has. The commercial yarn is 4ply yarn, and my handspun is 2ply. The 4ply yarn is more rounded and will look different in the finished item than a 2ply yarn. Again, this is a personal choice; if you aren’t sure, do a swatch! I knew I wouldn’t mind.

Finally, if you look at the close-up of the shawl, you can see the yarn looks loosely plied. This happened because the yarn I used was S-twist. That means I spun the singles with a twist going clockwise, then plied the singles counterclockwise.

Why did it untwist? Crocheters who crocheter right-handed will remove the twist from their S-twist plied yarn. I knew that was a risk when I decided to work up this project using S-plied yarn. I chose to do it anyway to see the outcome in the fabric.

And the truth is I don’t dislike this. In some ways, I think it adds an extra texture element to the scarf. Yet, to some, it might distract from the simple elegance of this stitch pattern.

This commercial yarn is also S-plied, yet it does not look as unplied. I believe it doesn’t look as unplied because there are 4plys in this yarn. The untwisting is distributed over all the plies.

In the future, I want to spin up some Z-twist yarn and work up this shawl again to see how I like the difference. I’m also curious if I slightly overply an S-twist yarn. Would that mitigate the untwisting that happens for right-handed crocheters?

Ultimately, your choices as a fiber artist are up to you! Do you like it? I like this shawl, and it’s been one of my favorite shawls to wear this winter!

The Most Picot Shawl is currently in the testing phase, and I hope to release it for sale in early April!

The commercial yarn in the photos is Knit Pick Gloss Fingering, Merino/Silk ben, in Plume, and the fiber content of the handspun is CVM-Lincoln Cross.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.