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When I first started bubbling, I bought a lot of different types of cotton twine as I had seen Keith Johnson mention that he made his tri-strings from braided butcher's twine. I wasn't sure what counted as butcher's twine, so I bought lots of balls of cotton twin -- mostly at hardware and grocery stores. Most of them worked pretty well, some better than others--then I noticed the cooking twine at Bed, Bath and Beyond when I was looking for something else. I bought a cone of it and fell in love with it. It held a lot of juice for its weight and released it nicely. I made 2, 3 and 4 strand cords from it (preferring the 3-strand version).

A few months ago, I ran out of it and went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy some more. I found the same size cone of twine but this twine looked different. The color and texture were different. I made a few loops out of it and it worked pretty well but nothing like my loops made with the old twine. I have no idea of it is simply that those old loops are well-broken in or if it is due to the difference in the twine's manufacture.

I have just treated some of the new twine by boiling it (twice) and adding borax to the water after taking it off the heat. I left the twine to soak for half an hour before doing a few iterations of the following: squeeze out the water, soak, rinse.

Below is a picture showing my used loop from the old BBB twine, the treated (but not yet used) 2012 twine, the used (but not treated) 2012 twine, the 2012 twine (unused and untreated).

Twines annotated
 

Glowby prompted me to count the threads that make up the twines. My 2010 twine has eight fluffy strands whereas the 2012 twine has 17 (really...17) unfluffy threads.

Twine threads compared

2010 and 2012 twines deconstructed

 
Twine 2010 threadcloseup
Twine2012 threadcloseup
Twine2012 fullstrandcloseup

2010 Twine thread

2012 Twine thread 2012 Twine Strand

NOTE: I have heard from a few people and it is clear that different twines are available at different B, B & B locations around the country. Recent (late 2012) purchases have turned up some twine like my 2010 twine (8 fluffy strands), the 17-unfluffy thread twine that I got a few months ago, and some 12-thread twine purchased in Florida.

August 2013 Follow-Up[]

The 2012 batch is what I have been using (so far) wherever you see references to my soda-washed twine. The 2012 stuff when soda-washed works great. I don't know how soda-washed versions would compare. So, whatever qualms I had about the 2012 batch has been allayed.