DKY Knitters Forum.

I have a terrible habit of trawling the charity shops for wool which does backfire on me sometimes but I I can't seem to stop myself I recently bought quite a bit of avocet razzle in white and in a prety pinky multi colour. It is lovely but very,very thin. I think it must be quite dated as I cannot find any patterns for it. I have used some of the multi with a boring beige kidsilk mohair which has worked a treat but i wondered if anyone knew about this yarn??

I did a google search for you and all I got was a lot of gobbldey gook so it must be a really old yarn.
I too was addicted to buying "bargain" yarn on ebay for a while and ended up with a huge bag of un labelled forest green crepe yarn. I did 2 tests-
the lighted match test to find content( almost sure mine is wool as it did not melt) then wound evenly around a ruler to get thickness.So many strands to an inch. Afterwards, I did about 3 tension squares and despite being sold as DK, it is 4ply.It is one of my works in progress and handles beautifully.
Does the label suggest guage on your yarn?

the suggested wraps for 3ply per inch or 2.54 cm is 16-18, and 4 ply is 14. Just wind carefully and evenly round a ruler or really large needler and count the strands per inch, then do a tension square to be absolutely sure .Hope this helps.

That is a really helpful tip - Thank you - I will copy it to the tips and tricks section.

Thanks for taking the time to help. I did a internet search as well and got no where, couldn't find the manufacturer either. The ball label doesn't have any needle recommendations which i am used to and i am not an experienced knitter, just getting more enthusiastic (which is why i buy some yarns from charity shops as they can be expensive). The ball does say 10gm-190 meters and that it was sold through avocet yarns in harrogate but it was made in west germany--west germany that might be a clue to how old it is!! It's as thin as cotton with 'eyelash' bits coming off it, very pretty. Anyway, I shall try the ruler test.
Oh, just looked again, it says it is 100% polymide, whatever that is!?
Thanks again.
Knitting not eating!

The clue here, I think, is the low weight and as you say,West german made. It sounds as if it is a 3ply or thinner so you were probably sensible to combine it with another yarn.Why don,t you try doing a tension square using a synthetic 4ply combined with this mystery yarn. On size 3.75 or 4mm that would be the equivalent to double knitting at 22 stitches to 4". If you end up with more stitches, say 26 to 28 to 4", then it is going to need 4ply patterns.
You say you are inexperienced but I think you are very brave to tackle this yarn, particularly with "eyelashes"!
It might sound obvious, but as it is 100 % synthetic, make sure you don,t mix it with natural fibres otherwise you will have problems with the washing.
Hope this helps.

Just a thought. It seems a bit mean to advertise another online yarn company on this site, but have you looked at Kemp wools? If you look at their sale items , you can see well known makes that are going for ridiculous prices like 69p a ball instead of the original, say 2.85.

i have tried the wraps, there are loads, it's like cotton--sewing cotton!
i think you are right, i need to use with another yarn, but i hadn't thought about the synthetic aspect.
will try the kemp site, lets face we all use several sites, if anyone from dky is reading this, i really do like your site!! the service is great, i sent for some card supplies 2 days before some yarn and needles from here and the yarn etc came first!

Thanks for the kind testimonial

We have no problem with you advertising other yarn sites as we are well aware we don't stock everything

Competition is good - There are enough knitters out there for us all.

I've just suggested Dianne's to someone on Kemps forum who was looking for 3ply in cream, so I should think it works out pretty well when different sites stock different things!