Meet Flitwick

I'd like to take a moment to introduce my favorite new toy, a birthday gift from my wonderful husband:

Okay, I for one am totally stunned that I am excited to get a scale as a present, seeing as how I normally avoid scales like the plague. But THIS is a YARN scale and not just any old yarn scale, but a Knit Picks Yarn Scale http://www.knitpicks.com/cfaccessories/accessory_display.cfm?ID=80633, guaranteed accurate to 0.5 grams. Trust me, that's impressive; check the ones at the kitchen store or Target, they are mostly guaranteed to 5 grams. So who cares? ME, and I'll tell you why so you can care too!

That gorgeous yarn on the scale is what remains of my Claudia Hand Painted Yarns fingering weight skein (colorway: Copper Pennies) after finishing one Fair Isle Fox Mitten Test Mitten.

The skein originally weighed 50 grams. Those magical numbers on my new scale read 28.0g. Since 28.0 is greater than 25.0, and is well within a 0.5g margin of error but not within a 5.0g margin of error, I now know that I have enough yarn to finish the second mitten!

AND, since I know that the original skein had 175 yards in that 50 grams, I now also know that I used 77 yards for the first mitten and have a whopping 21 yards more than I need for the second mitten. Who knew I could rattle off math like that? If only elementary school math class had used practical scenarios like this one, my school years would have been far more pleasant and productive!

See? Magic! I think I'm going to call my yarn scale "Flitwick", since it is small, magical, and completely charming.

BTW, that Claudia Hand Painted Yarn is as wonderful to knit with as it is pretty, love the beaded texture and the color.

And, for you very observant types, yes, I really do have ridiculously short toes.