Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Burn, Baby, Burn

Untagged, unlabeled, unidentified.  While stash diving, two skeins of mystery un-anything yarn fell from the lower shelf.  What?  You have never had skeins of yarn fall from a shelf and go "plop" at your feet?  Clearly you don't have a big enough stash - get out there and shop!

What really gets my goat about these two skeins is that I had them together in a plastic bag as though they are supposed to be something.  But alas, no tag or any identifying anything was in the bag with the stuff.  How odd is that?  In today's yarn world everyone puts their personal logo and all manner of information on everything!  One would think that  this should have a clear label.  

What is an out of luck woman to do?  Burn, baby, burn.  

This day did begin with a list of chores.  Missing from the list was conduct burn test on mystery yarn.  But that is exactly what I did.  My experience with identification through the burn test is somewhat limited.  I've done it a few times, but by no stretch of the imagination am I an expert at fiber identification.  What can I say but that I like labels.

Look at that very bright yellow/orange flame!  Talk about fast burning and hot!  Even with my limited experience this is obviously not wool.  But I already knew that.  It did not feel like wool and it did not smell like wool when I wet a piece.  I only wet some of the stuff in an effort to see if it would felt and fall into the "animal" category.  If it had felted or smelled, then I would have been far down the ID line.

Just because yarn burns and is not self-extinguishing doesn't mean that it is easy to identify.  In fact, it barely tells me anything.  I have a not so secret weapon that gets me fairly close.

Check out this link to help determine fiber content.  It is a dandy of a reference.  

So, the stuff does not felt nor smell of animal.  In it's dry condition is it very flexible and "soft".  Today's burn test results are:
  • burns and not self-extinguishing
  • huge bright yellow/orange flame
  • fast burning flame
  • ember continued to glow for a bit
  • smelled faintly of paper, no leaf smell
  • a tiny bit of ash that was more black than gray
Taken all together, I am leaning toward a very high rayon content - maybe even 100%, but something about the feel of the yarn makes me want to conclude that it has a touch of cotton as well.  It is entirely too soft to have a linen mixed in there.  

What do you think? 

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