The glove pattern we have now calls for 1800 yards of yarn. We are currently using either Jamieson & Smith 2-ply jumper weight or Harrisville Designs’ shetland, which are about 14 wpi. I had these numbers last night but forgot to put them in.

WPI means wraps per inch, or how many times a given yarn will comfortably wrap around a tool like a ruler in the space of one inch. It’s a useful number both if you’re trying to spin a yarn to a particular size or if you’re substituting yarns for a pattern.

The glove pattern we’re currently using is based, in shape at least, on the Gunnister glove, which was knit at a gauge of 17 stitches per inch. Our glove pattern is much coarser, knit to 6.5 stitches per inch. We did this both for speed and for the convenience of our volunteer knitters. Most modern knitters are not accustomed to knitting at such a fine gauge. Now that we’ve tapped into a very enthusiastic and experienced group of knitters, though, maybe we can develop a fine gauge glove pattern.

Here also are the promised photos of the dirty laundry. These piles represent about half of the clothes of about half of the interpreters. The seasonal staff brought back their things Monday, and we’ve washed almost all of the while linens. The year-round staff will trickle in over the next couple of weeks. They’re trying to get some outdoor work done before the ground freezes and we’ll probably see them the first rainy day.

We wash everything that can be washed, including shirts/smocks, coifs, aprons, stays (corsets), canvas doublets, waistcoats, breeches and all the knitted garments. The wool clothes are dry-cleaned, which is of course not period correct, but at a modern museum where we expect someone to wear clothes that were worn and worked hard in by someone else all last summer, well, dry-cleaning is definitely in order.

This is one of my favorite times of year. There’s something very satisfying about taking a pile of dirty clothes and ending the day with a rack of neatly hung, clean, mended ones. Something very straightforward, too. No grey areas and unanswerable questions like you find in, oh, say historical research.

It’s an all winter job, though, especially when you add in the household textiles, the blankets, sheets, bed curtains and such that also come to us for the spa treatment. I’d best get back to it.

After several false starts and various trials, I blogged this post on the new laptop - finally! Thanks to Penny and Shaina for being my guides in cyberland, and for commiserating when I did something stupid and totally my own fault and lost the whole post. Twice.