Merino/Shetland Socks

I've finished (yet) another pair of socks, this pair from handspun yarn.

I had 26g of blue merino/silk fibre from a bag of lap waste* I'd bought and 65g of yellow Shetland fibre, so I over-dyed half of the yellow Shetland with blue and green dye and left the other half plain yellow.  Each colour was spun into a single:

The singles were then plyed into a marled skein which weighed 80g and was just under 300m in length, which is enough for a pair of socks for me:

I knitted these socks using my usual toe-up sock 'recipe' with gusset and heel flap and they didn't take long to knit (just under two weeks):

I'm quite pleased with them, although I'm not sure if some of the colour will bleed when I wash them for the first time.

Obviously, having finished these, it meant.....

Yes, a new pair of socks for DD2!  We had a discussion this morning about which yarn to use.  She was keen on another ball I'd got in my stash (Wendy Roam Fusion) but a look on Ravelry showed that it would be difficult to make a pair of socks that matched and, as that's important for DD2, she settled on this ball of Sirdar Heart & Sole instead.

I'm definitely feeling a bit socked out now though, so once these are finished, I'm definitely going to start a sweater, scarf, or a hat!


*lap waste is a term used for a mixed bag of 'leftovers' from the factory, which can't be used to make a full 100g amount of fibre.  You never know what you'll get and there can be a mix of fibres and sheep breeds.

Socks, socks, sock

Actually, FOUR pairs.  I haven't cast on anything other than socks since finishing my stripey sweater and I realised I hadn't posted a picture of the finished socks I knitted for DD2, so here they are:

She only wanted ankle socks and they weigh 44g, so I only needed one 50g ball.

She then asked for another pair, so I knitted these:

These are WYS yarn and I think the colour's Pink Flamingo in the Cocktails range of colours.  Ankle socks again, but these were about 6 rounds longer than the previous pair, but still used less than 50g of yarn.

I'm now being badgered to knit a third pair for her and I'm pretty sure she knows exactly how many pairs I've knitted for her sister and will demand the same number for herself!

I have knitted some new socks for myself.  This pair were started at the beginning of December and finished at the end of February and were a pair I knitted "as and when" at knitting group when I had nothing else I could knit on whilst chatting, or when waiting for DD2's school transport to arrive.  The yarn's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Rainbow.  64sts round, on 2.25mm needles, the way the colours of the yarn stacked up have given the socks a much less bright look than I thought I'd get.

I also got some interesting pooling once I started increasing for the gusset, but that's usual for this yarn and has happened with every sock I've knitted with it.

I got some interesting pooling on the heel flap as well:

The last pair is from some handspun 3ply yarn I made from some Cheviot fibre.  Cheviot is down type of fleece and is supposed to be hard-wearing and have non-felting properties.  I dyed the fibre at home with food colouring, using white vinegar to 'set' the colours in the fibre.  The yarn came out like this:

and these are the socks:

Quite subtle really and a bit like moss and lichen on the stone wall.  These were knitted on 2mm needles and the fabric's quite dense and the socks aren't particularly soft to the touch, but I wore them to work last weekend and they were very comfortable to wear.

I'm still trying to decide what 'big' project to knit next (probably a sweater) but in the meantime, I've got another pair of socks on the needles for me and DD2 is breathing down my neck, telling me to get on with them so I can knit her another pair!

A Cabled Yarn from Kent Romney fleece

Since I started spinning several years ago, I've made 2ply and 3ply yarns.  Some of the 3ply yarns I spun using one single/strand of spun fibre, chain plyed (which means pulling the single through itself to make longish loops so there are three strands lying next to each other which are then twisted to make the 3ply yarn), but generally speaking I've spun plain yarns.  In recent months, however, I've been reading one of my spinning books and thinking about expanding my spinning horizons.

A couple of weeks ago I pulled out a 100g bump of Kent Romney fibre from my stash and dyed it with some fuchsia pink and turquoise food colouring paste and ended up with it looking like this (this isn't the whole 100g; I realised as I was coming to the end of spinning the singles that I hadn't taken a photo of the starting fibre):

I then divided the 100g into four and then each quarter was spun into a single.

The next stage of making a cabled yarn is to spin the four singles into two 2ply yarns, but with much more twist than usual.  When spinning yarn, the singles are spun one way (in this case, my wheel was going clockwise) and then the singles are plyed with the wheel going the opposite way.  During plying, some of the twist of the singles gets taken out and, as the final stage of a cabled yarn is to ply the two 2ply yarns together in the same direction as the singles were (which then takes twist out of those 2ply yarns), the middle stage 2ply yarns need to have much more twist than would be put in a traditional 2ply yarn.

Two singles waiting to be made into a 2ply yarn - the middle stage

The two 2ply yarns waiting to be spun into the final 4ply yarn

The final stage was plying the two 2ply yarns together, then it was wound off into a skein, washed and hung up to dry and this was what I ended up with:

Here's a close-up, which shows off the cabling:

What's interesting is how the bright pink and turquoise (there was a little bit of purply-mauve where the colours mixed as well) of the original fibre has become muted as the colours got spun together.

The final skein weighs 91g and measures around 158 metres and, according to my yarn measuring thingammy, it's a sport-to-DK weight yarn.

Did I enjoy making the yarn?  Yes, although it was pretty labour-intensive.

What am I going to make with it?  No idea!  Cabled yarns are supposed to be good and hard-wearing for socks but I don't think I've got enough for that, although I could use a contrast yarn for the toes, heels and cuffs (although that would negate the reason for spinning a 4ply cabled yarn for socks as the heel's the bit that's more prone to wear).

Would I make a cabled yarn again?  Possibly.  I could definitely have put more twist into the middle stage of making the two 2ply yarns, which I think would have given better results (handspun yarn loses twist when it gets its first wash and I find it difficult to judge how much).  Overall, I can see that it's a cabled yarn, but there are also areas where I've either under- or over-spun the final stage so the cabling isn't so evident.

At least I tried something different!

What I need to do now is get on with spinning the yarn I've been making on my spindle.  It's another 4ply yarn, but the construction's slightly different to a cable.  More about that in a future post though.