Spinner's Alphabet: What Begins With G?

By Amelia © May 4, 2026

My still-all-time-favorite spin,
3-ply sockweight CVM

G

is for Grist. That should be a four-letter word, given how much practice it takes to spin to a target grist. It's the measure of a yarn typically in yards per pound (YPP) or meters per kilo. Things that impact Grist: Wraps Per Inch, Twist Angle, Drafting Style, Fiber, Finishing.

In color classes I often talk about "spinning to the grist" - getting the same yardage with the same weight of fiber. If you have ever had this happen, I hope you went and bought a lottery ticket, or celebrated in some way.

My most recent run-in with grist is attempting to use a McMorran Yarn Balance to estimate YPP of handspun. I do not recommend that, by the way - it has not proven reliable with my human-spun skeins. So, I put my handspun on my skeiner and then count the rounds, or run the whole skein through my yardage meter between swift and ballwinder.

The one YPP number I keep in my head is 1600 - the typical yardage for socks. With their tight twist angle of 35-40°, drafting style is less important. I aim for sock fiber to produce 100 yards per ounce, or 400 yards for a pair of socks. I've seen that number again and again no matter the blend.

For the same yardage and WPI, I can use weight to compare twist angle. Higher twist is denser, so I know if my 400 yards of 16 wraps per inch sock yarn is less than four ounces, I'm going to have socks that will wear out faster than 400 yards of the same WPI that weigh four or even five ounces. In fact, the five ounce skein would be super tough and have a pretty high twist angle.

I can also take a comparative guess at drafting style or fiber preparation with the same weight and WPI. The skein with more yardage is likely to have some woolen component, while the skein with less yardage is likely to have some worsted component. Worsted prep/draft lead to denser yarns, causing the same yardage to weight more than a skein with woolen prep and/or draft.

It amazes me how, even after spinning for decades, I still come up with ideas for experiments to hone my spinning knowledge. There's always something new to explore, be it tools, fibers, or the intricacies of spinning itself.

Striped rolags spun to the grist...

Two questions:

• Have you had the magic of spinning to the grist happen? Even within an arm's length is "close enough"!
• What's your spinning G?

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© May 4, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/