Looking Closely

 

In sorting through my yarns, I had quickly sorted by colour but when I went to use one of the colours, I took a closer look.  

When I examined the yarns, they looked different to me.  Although the colour seemed really close, one of the yarns was more shiny than the other one which also appeared to be more lofty, even though when I compared them side by side, they seemed about the same thickness.  Close enough to say they were both the same count.

But I kept coming back to the two lots of tubes and the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that there was some sort of 'invisible' difference.

I wondered if the loftier one was actually cottolin.  Since my digital microscope can (barely) get close enough to distinguish linen fibre from cotton, I dragged it out today.

There does appear to be some linen fibre in the one strand, so I'm not going to use these two yarns together as weft in a towel.  However the biggest difference is in the number of twists per inch.

I think you can see from the photo that the upper thread is more tightly twisted than the lower one.  The lower one is also hairier (if that's a word) and it's the one with what looks like linen fibres in it.

While I can't guarantee this is so, I've separated the two yarns out and will not use both in the same towel because they could very easily behave and/or feel quite different, just based on the degree of twist.

Always listen to your inner voice.  Sometimes it might not be correct, but if it is...