Details, Details

 

It's quite hard to see, but in amongst all the cotton fibres, I *think* I see some linen.  Enough to cast doubt on this yarn being 100% cotton, at any rate.

Cotton fibres are routinely between 3/4 of an inch to about 1.5".  After harvest they go from round tube to flat twisted 'ribbon'.  Linen fibres are longer and more rod like.  

Yesterday I mentioned that I wasn't going to use both yarns in the same tea towel and by that I meant I would not want to use both as weft in the same textile.  They will behave differently.  The one with linen will lose less width than the 100% cotton.  And, because of the difference in twist, they might look markedly different as well.

So the suspect tubes have been set aside and I'll use them together to make one towel.  Anything left over (which likely won't be much) will get put into my recycle bin.  

The difference between the two yarns of the 'same' colour tugged at my eye without my paying too much attention because I was busy sorting about 50 tubes of yarn into colours/dye lots.  It was only when I began looking at each pile of the 'same' colour that I paid more attention to that tiny difference I had noted without actually thinking about it.

In the end it took me a good 20 minutes of looking at the two yarns under the microscope to see if I could tell more about the yarn.  But if I had used the two different yarns randomly, I could have wound up with three towels that were...strange...with different shrinkage rates and looking 'odd' due to the difference in twist.  Instead I'll have 3 perfectly find towels.

Training one's eye to see such fine details is all part of mastering the craft.  Know your materials.  Understand their inherent characteristics.  Be prepared to make adjustments when you spot potential areas of concern.

Above all?  Keep learning.  Pay attention to your inner voice.  Sometimes it has an important message you need to hear.  When in doubt, do something different.