Deep Dive

 

Two yarns, the beige is a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the bottom is labelled 20/2 unmercerized cotton

Two different 2/20 mercerized cotton yarns, one is much more tightly twisted and therefore thinner than the less tightly twisted yarn

One yarn a known 2/20 mercerized cotton, the other unknown manufacturer or count

Having done a deep dive into my stash I gathered all of my known 2/20 mercerized yarns together, along with some 'mystery' yarns.

The gold in the bottom picture is shiny like mercerized cotton, and about the same thickness as the known 2/20 mercerized cotton, but I couldn't tell if it was rayon or cotton.  A burn test leaned towards cotton.   I made a small 'tassel' of each yarn and burned them simultaneously in order to compare how they burned - how quickly, their smoke (if any), and the residue when I blew the flames out.

And then when I wove with the gold, it shrank more than the known mercerized cotton, so then I was ambivalent - was it really cotton?  Or not?

When I examined both under the digital microscope, I can see that the individual fibres have the characteristic cotton twist along their length, so in spite of the higher shrinkage rate, I'm 99.9% confident that the gold is, in fact, cotton.

The two white yarns are both labelled 20/2 mercerized, but I'm fairly confident that they are both ring spun although the Astra has a much higher degree of twist and is therefore stronger, thinner and coarser both on the cone and in the cloth.  Not a deal breaker for a tea towel.

The top photo shows a yarn labelled 20/2 and further gives the information that it has 15 tpi while the other is a Brassard 2/20 mercerized cotton.  I'm pretty confident that the 20/2 is open end spun given that it is thicker (loftier) and has more loose fibres poking out of the yarn.

Once again, evidence that the count only tells the number of yards per pound (or meters per metric length) and nothing else.