The Economics of the yarns I am making these days

 I start by spinning worsted singles at 17 tpi and between 11,000 and 14,000 ypp.  In an hour, I can spin about 300 yards, using about 10 grams of fiber. 

For the BeeHive replica (4-ply, 2,500 ypp), I then ply 4 singles together, and produce yarn at about 70 yards per hour. Then a 30 gram/ 1 ounce / ~100 yards ball is 1.5-hours work.

For the 6-ply (1,700 ypp) yarn, I can average about 50 yards of yarn ready to scour, so an ounce ball is a couple hours of work. 

However, it takes me twice as long to knit a square inch of fabric from the 4-ply as from the 6-ply, so spinning is cheaper than knitting.

Is this spinning worth my time?

I justified spinning gansey yarn because of its exceptional functionality.  I do not know what the functionality of these yarns is. 

I have never seen yarns in retail yarn shops that knit into such beautiful fabrics. I have seen such beautiful fabrics in museums and the catwalks of Paris. I have seen almost as nice fabrics in fancy department stores such as Needless Markup. All of a sudden I see how a suit of hand spun clothes can cost as much as a house.

The fibers I am using are sunk costs - fleece that I bought or were given to me long ago, and which I did not use because it was not suited to past projects. Then, I did not understand that if I just spun it  worsted and very fine - it would be exceptional.

For now, I am going to justify this exercise by saying, my spinning is as good as spending the day in the gym - and thereby saves me $50/month YMCA dues.