Fiber Musings

What do you get when you put a warping board, Knitpicks Bare sock yarn, and some dye together?

I love it when a tool can serve double duty. The warping board pegs are about 18″ apart — a bit more than the recommended 15″, but close enough for me!

All tied off and ready to dye!

Dipped in dye stock, wrapped in plastic wrap, and ready for zapping in the microwave. Unfortunately, after 3 minutes in the nuker, I realized I forgot to add vinegar! Smooshed some vinegar into each pouch and back to the nuker.

I couldn’t wait. I washed and dried the yarn in the dryer (gotta love superwash sock yarn) and knitted this up right away. I think it turned out pretty well! I’m not fond of the blue in there, but it still doesn’t look to bad.

Would I do this again? Quite honestly? I don’t know. It was a pain to wind off the yarn. Part of the problem was that I felted it slightly when smooshing in the vinegar and then the dryer action. But it still was a pain in the butt to wind off because you can’t do it on a swift. I hung it up on the pegs to wind off gently from the warping board. It was slow going. Then, I wound off to a center pull ball, and then divided into 2 somewhat equal center pull balls so that they start at the same location in the color repeats. Very tedious. I think the winding off part took as long as all the rest put together! But I do love how crisp the lines are.

Comments Off

Okay, you know it’s been too long since you last dye fiber when…you forget to presoak the yarn and the fiber. Then you forget to add the vinegar.

It was a gorgeous day outside. Just the right type of day to pull out the dye pots and play with color. Thankfully, nothing unrepairable. I just hope that I “cooked” the yarn long enough once I remembered the vinegar for the colors to set correctly. I even remembered that a couple of the colors I used are notoriously bad about exhausting, plus the fact that I used way too much of the said dye to get the saturated color I wanted. The yarn refuses to rinse clear.

The last batch of fiber is brewing on the back porch in my electric turkey roaster. I can’t wait.

Comments Off

Spunky Eclectic – Colorway Lichen

You can see the difference in the color intensity between the roving that’s been split (small ball on the lower right), pre-drafted (big puffy balls), and what is spun (singles). The color lightens quite a bit after it has been pre-drafted, but intensifies again when spun into singles.

Happy Vernal Equinox, everyone!

1 Comment »

Something I didn’t mention yesterday, when I gave all the specs, is gauge. Yarn weight and needles used mean nothing, nada, without gauge. I’m only providing stitch gauge, not row gauge, since row gauge means very little in my recipe socks (knit until it fits).

• Koigu: 8 spi
• Trekking XXL: 9.5 spi (sw, nylon)
• Bright Anklets: 7.5 spi (sw)
• Black Bunny socks: 7 spi
• Spunky Eclectic socks: 7spi

These are measured against my well worn socks, so the stitches have fulled a bit on the non superwash (sw) socks.

While I have loved my Koigu socks, these will not be the main staple of my sock drawer — the occasional socks, yes, but they will not make up the majority of my socks. Why? They have not worn well for me. Every single pair of my Koigu socks grew holes in the heels in the 18-24 month range. Perhaps if I squeezed it down to a 9 spi range, it will wear better.

Well, if I really want them to wear better, I would stop wearing them with my Danskos and Birkies. Why? I hate how “enclosed” my feet feel when I wear shoes. I take them off as often as I can. I’ve been known to ask the person sitting across a conference room table from me to kick my shoe back over to me…

Aside: this is also the reason that I like my plain sock recipe.  I don’t like the feel of all that patterning on my feet.  I can feel every little stitch.  Most unpleasant.

That’s a lot of wear on the heels…All that sliding in and out of shoes. The socks that lasted were the ones knitted with commercial sock yarn with nylon content.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. My handspun socks…

When it came down to knitting socks with my own handspun, I wanted to make sure that they last a bit. I kept going down in my needle size until I got a really nice firm fabric — to the point where it was almost unpleasant. I say almost because the work it takes to knit at that gauge with yarn of this weight was offset by the lovely feel of the yarn.

And the feel. The Trekking XXL is loverly. They fit extremely well with dressier shoes because they are so thin. They wear like iron and feels like iron too. It just isn’t soft and squishy.

Because my handspun is loftier than commercial yarn, I can compact it quite a bit while knitting. And my belief is that you should compact it, if you want it to wear well. Hence the gauge.

You may think that 7 spi isn’t really a small gauage for socks. After all, look at the other stocks. Koigu came in at 8. Trekking XXL came in a 9.5. Factor in the weight of the yarn. This is where the wpi comes in.

12 wpi is typically considered worsted weight, and the recommended gauge for this yarn is around 4.5 spi.

At this point, only time will tell. I will need to revisit this issue in another 18 months so see how well these 2 pairs of socks wear.

Of course, there will be a lot more of these in my sock drawer in 18 months time. I really like how these feel on my feet that I will turn a blind eye to the fact that they don’t have nylon content.

Perhaps I will be doing a bit o’ blending for my sock yarn. Silk and mohair are good alternatives to nylon. Come to think of it, I have some fiber in my stash that fit the requirements.

Ta! Off to some experiments.

1 Comment »

Remember these and these socks? Now that I’ve worn them a few times, I have to say that I love, Love, LOVE them. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get the gumption up to knit socks from my own handspun.

There is one thing that I’ve noticed. The Black Bunny Hop ranged between 10-12 wpi according to my spinner’s control card, and was knitted using US 1 (2.5mm). The Spunky Eclectic averaged 12 wpi, and was knit using US 0 (2.0mm).

Wait! 2.0mm needles? What’s going on here? I normally use these needles for socks knit with Koigu. Koigu comes in at 16 wpi. Much finer than my handspun. A quick look through my leftover sock yarn stash…

• Koigu: 12 wpi; typically use 2.0mm needles
• Trekking XXL: 20 wpi; current socks using 2.0mm
• Bright Anklets: 18 wpi; don’t remember, but likely 2.5mm
• Black Bunny socks: 12 wpi; 2.5mm — the fabric is a little sleazy, and I could have gone down to 2.0mm
• Spunky Eclectic socks: 12 wpi; 2.0mm

So, why am I all over the place on the size of needles that I’m using for my socks?

I’ll write about my theories tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your theories.

Comments Off