Etherply

Gardens are a living river marking the flow of time.  One can sense the hurry, the frenetic pace of budding, flowering, fruiting, all before it is too cold and too late.  My lupine is hollering at the top of her lungs right now:  "ME!  Look at me!  Look at ALL of me!  Even just ONE of my flowers must tempt you!"

Twelve bobbins of Coopworth singles.  A different kind of abundance, spun over thirteen months.   I planned three ply, from three bobbins.  (I did not want the texture of Navajo plying.  The little knots where you loop the yarn change the yarn, as does trapping the twist in each section between knots.)

I measured and weighed the singles as I finished each bobbin.  Calculations loomed.  It wouldn't be hard, just boring, I thought.  Figure out yards per gram, and match groups of three so that the resulting yarn was as uniform as possible.  Who can knit to gauge if the skeins are variously worsted, DK weight, AND light aran?  I wanted worsted weight.

I started the calcs.  After about fifteen minutes, and a notepad full of numbers that I had to start organizing, I turned to home talent.  I asked Mr. Etherknitter to write me a quick calculator program that sorted the bobbins as I described.

Quick.  Ha.  He told me that the problem starts out as 12 factorial choices.  That means that the number of possibilities are 12 x 11 x 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = whatever.  There were 15,400 unique possibilities.   I ruefully laughed at the idea that I had started to calculate this by hand.  Two weeks later, he gave me a program that performs the math AND has a polished user interface for the application. 

I am sharing his work with the spinning world.  My fiber consultants think I am obsessing.  Can I really be the only person on the face of the spinning planet who has spun multiples of bobbins and wants to ply to make uniform skeins?  Even if you have only four bobbins, and plan two skeins of 2 ply yarn, this eliminates the math (you would have 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 possibilities, not all unique, but all tedious to calculate by hand).

The program is here.  Feedback to improve the interface is invited and welcome. 

Comments

[Marcy]

Yaaaay! You have released Etherply unto the world, out into the wild!

[Kathy]

That's awesome!

[Teresa C]

I'm hyperventilating over the wonderful (but for me, impossible) OCD of this. Now I know you will always be a better spinner than I am, you've given me so much to strive for!

[Caroline M]

You were right, I should have waited to run the alpaca through it. On the other hand, maybe not because I'd not have been patient enough to wait for it to crunch the numbers.

I have lupins too, sowed loads, planted 24, four lived, three flowered.

[Carole]

Obsess much? LOL

[Manise]

Finally! And the multitudes are rising to their feet and clapping and raising their glasses to you and Mr. Etherknitter! Well done my friend! Can't wait to try it out!

[Manise]

Great logo too! I am partial to the Greek alphabet. :-)

[Chris]

I am so glad you and Mr. E found each other. I admire your dedication and his support of it. I suspect you will always have more perfect, consistent handspun than I. Fortunately for me, I'm pretty comfy with that.

[Sylvia]

I find the two of you endlessly entertaining. I've always just put the bobs on the floor in a row, thin to thick, and plied the outliers and worked toward the center...

If you end up with a bit more variance in grist than you desired, use the outliers for cuffs if brief, sleeves if more akin to a third of the overall and on the fine side. Thicker yarn for the upper bodice, etc. Holler if you have questions.

The yarn, btw, looks lovely. So satisfying to see those full bobs! Gold star!

[Ruth]

My mind boggles (but in the best possible way). You two are incredible.

[moiraeknittoo]

Holy cow that's awesome. I mean, the garden and the 12 bobbins are a given, because wow. But the program! How totally cool is that? Y'all are fabulous. Just fabulous.

[Arianne]

Could you please explain to a complete novice how I'm supposed to know how many metres I have on each of my bobbins? And by weight do you mean the weight of the finished yarn? How do I know this? (Aside from weighing the bobbin before and after fullness, or is that how you do it?)

Sorry...I'm confused.

[Anne]

Holy cow! He WROTE you a program to calculate this. My head hurts just thinking about the organizational logistics of this.

I'll be anxiously awaiting the finished yarn now to see how it all comes out in the wash. :)

[Kim]

I'm with Anne....too much math for me, but I can't wait to see how your experiment ends up!

Beautiful Lupine!

[Madame Purl]

Fantastic! I can't wait to give this a try. I feel the same way. I love when the bobbins just ply out perfectly.

[Carrie]

Lovely! My spinning hasn't progressed quite that far, but a friend is spinning for a sweater, so I'm definitely passing this on to her!
(PS - I LOVE lupine!)

[margene]

Stunning. If it takes that much work to make a perfect sweater...I'm done before I begin. It is wonderful that you two found each other.

[elizabeth]

I can't believe you did it! I agree about the properties of three ply v. navajo plied (my navajo plied yarn always seems a bit flat) but man! 12 bobbins of the same yarn. Hats off to ya!

[Dawn]

Wow--this is the coolest thing I've seen this week! A big "Thank You!" to you and Mr. Etherknitter.

[Teyani]

am laughing at all your calculations :-) It boggles the mind.
Your Lupine is lovely.

[Danielle]

I lift my glass (of wine, of course!) to you. You KNOW that this makes my heart go pitter patter.

[Lucia]

Naughty you, flaunting your lupine. That program is totally cool.

[Lynn]

HOW many bobbins of Coopworth?!

I bow before your persistence, which greatly outweighs even Mr. E's abilities at calculations.

And just how did you measure your yardage per bobbin, may I ask? I just measure the inches around a full swift and multiply by the number of strands around same, but I rather doubt it's very accurate, precise, or repeatable. Maybe I'll put a yardage meter on my wish list.

[Liz]

As a wannabe math nut, I think there's something funky in Mr E's logic... or perhaps it's time I headed back to school ;)

If I have 4 bobbins A-B-C-D and I want 2 skeins of 2-ply, I think I have only 3 choices: AB/CD, AC/BD, AD/BC... no?

[barb]

I just gave Etherply a try - amazing! Thank you for sharing this.

[Diane]

Oh, That's very cool. I will be trying it! Collect your lupine seeds when the pods are "crackling" dry. We can swap our colors, and re-seed this fall.

[claudia]

That is some home-grown talent, right there.

[June]

Can I be a PseudoTrueNerd for a second? Wouldn't the calculation be a combination, not a factorial, because the order of the bobbins in a set doesn't matter? (That is to say, when plying singles from bobbins 3, 4, and 8, that's the same as plying singles from bobbins 8, 3, and 4.) I'm trying to recall my high school algebra here...

[Juno]

I love that about you. Very cool.

[PumpkinMama]

Not only do I love you for your obsessiveness, but I love Mr E for his support of you in it.