Intrepid Fiber Wizard

A fabulous Yarn

Sooooooo soft

“Don’t squeeze the Charmin”

“Take me away Calgon”

Yup.. these old commercials continue to pop into my head as I knit with this new fabulous yarn. (I really like it).

 Just to recap – Allison, owner of Simply Socks Yarn Company, commissioned a few of us to periodically test knit new yarn lines for her shop. She sends them out to us sans labels, only noting the yardage, yarn content and washing instructions. It’s a wonderfully fun adventure to knit them for her.

 

This yarn arrived here on July 10^th, and by July 18^th, I had knit the pair. It was difficult to put down (grins)

Specifics: 

3 ply fingering weight

Springy, well prepared, in a compact little skein of 360 yards.

Content: superwash merino, cashmere and nylon. (machine washable cashmere…. Sigh.. be still my heart)

Knit on size 1 dpn’s

 

It was tied off a teensy bit too tightly, making me nervous to cut the ties at first. But I quickly overcame my sensitivities and cut. I was at my office, and couldn’t wait until I went home to fetch my ball winder, so I draped it over my knees and wound away. Not a tangle nor misbehaved moment occurred, and I was off and running.

 

  I chose the Artichoke Sock pattern, thinking it might best show off the sweet short color runs. And it does. The colors practically dance around the sock. There was no pooling around the gusset and instep. The yarn is wonderful. No knots, no pulls, no frays, no weak spots. Perfect (which is unusual in this day and age of commercially prepared yarn blanks). The stitch definition is great -  And the yarn works well with the pattern design.

Want to see what it might look like in stockinette? Let's peek at the feet bottoms, shall we?

About every 50 yards or so, there was a small bit of fluff attached to the yarn, reminiscent of the cashmere goats from which it is made. This fell off easily, and the yarn remained in tact underneath it.

 

Speaking of cashmere goats, this yarn might be a tad bit pricey (I do not know the cost of it yet). Some of you might not know it, but there was a time that I helped to raise a few cashmere goats. They are not easy to process. Timing for the shearing (which happens only once per year in this region) has to be precisely managed. Too soon, and the fiber staple is far too short. A few days too late, and the goats will have begun shedding (which then requires the shepherd to walk around the field, collecting stray fluffs of fiber off various trees and fences). Once the goats are shorn, the fiber must be processed, and the long coarse guard hairs removed. Which leaves the shepherd with only a small amount of usable fluffy fiber from a year’s investment in the animal.

Cashmere is truly a labor of love.

 

I was a little bit concerned at having only 360 yards in the skein – and so I knit the sock legs only 6 inches long instead of my usual 7 or 7 ½ inches. As it turns out, I need not have been concerned, because I had 48 yards left over, after knitting both socks for my very average sized woman’s foot. 

I tossed them in the washing machine on cold, with a regular load and waited to be sure they would survive the tumble. The yarn remained true to its claim – and the socks emerged from the laundry looking fabulous.

 

And so, viola.

Fini. 

I love them.

 

And my only request is:

May I please have another?

Sneak preview

   merino-cashmere sock yarn.......... test knitting it for Allison at SSYC.......

more info soon.

Sleeve Island - and some socks

I am finished with my sock yarn test knitting for Allison - and wanted to share my final thoughts with all of you:
Skein number two had 6 flaws in the yarn - here's a close up:
such a shame that a very bad flaw occurred just as I was closing the toe, and in the effort of a clear review, I did not cut and graft the yarn, but simply knit with it as is..these socks will most likely not be very durable due to the damage in the skein.

Here are my completed socks. The stripes on sock number two behaved a bit better throughout the entire length of the ankle and the foot. My guess as to what the difference might have been is that perhaps one skein became twisted slightly during the dye process, and therefore is dramatically different in color application from skein two - but then again, you just never know for certain about yarn (sometimes it just has a mind of it's own - grin)

And thus, I moved on to my visit on "Sleeve Island" (another grin).
The past three days , "Mr. Flu" has been staying with me (ugh). It's been the nasty fever, sore throat, coughing, headache one - and I have been home. With liberal doses of anti-inflamatories,  my body stopped aching enough to knit between naps.
I sipped my tea (what felt like gallons of it) and knit a few rows, napped some more and then knit again. The good news is that both sleeves are now done. (yippee) And I am still in love with this yarn (cascade 220 heather) and the pattern. I will hopefully cast on for the front after my next nap and another pot of tea.
Stay healthy everyone.

Sock Yarn Review

My friend Allison, over at Simply Socks Yarn Company had a baby a few months ago (as many of you know) and now has asked a bunch of us to join her in reviewing new yarns that she is bringing into her wonderful online shop. I have ordered from Allison (at least as often as my budget allows) and I can tell you that her selection totally rocks, and her service is outstanding!Therefore, I was happy to be of assistance to her.

My yarn arrived Saturday Feb 16th; it's a superwash merino, put up in 380 yard skeins.  I promptly grabbed my ballwinder, and prepared to play. The color is brilliant! Having spent many years dyeing fiber and yarn, I can tell you just how difficult it is to achieve a true red. Applause applause to this dyer. (Please note that Allison sends the yarn to us with no labels at all, so that we remain unbiased).
The color held up very well during my knitting - zero bleed in either the knit process or the bath (more applause) The yarn is a commercially prepared three ply, very springy and bouncy. Yumm.
Other good news, there were no knots in the skein, and it was well prepared, nicely tied and neatly presented when it arrived to me. Oh so pretty.. my fingers itched to begin.

I began with size 2 needles, casting on 70 stitches, and this yarn (as Allison shared with me) was suggested to be knit up at 6 stitches to the inch. Indeed, on size 2 it came out exactly that.
I would have proceeded with my size twos, and had a very fast sock, yet the first dilemma occured: can you say flash? See how it's looking?
here's the front, and here's the back. All the brilliant red was on one side of the sock. not very pretty.

So I ripped back and began again on my size 1 needles. The gauge changed to 7 stitches per inch, and so I cast on 60 stitches. It fits perfectly on my very average sized foot. The color flow behaved much better. (I love me some great strong stripes). The fabric is a bit more dense, yet not stiff, and will be good for sturdy socks at this gauge.

I was happily knitting along when dilemma number two occurred..... damaged yarn. Here's a close up on one of the spots - click to make bigger, it's right in the middle of the photo. - I counted ten of these in the first skein (and so far in skein number two I have three... and I'm almost to the heel)

I decided that this might not be too much of a problem, since I was knitting such a dense fabric... yet in the final examination, after a nice bath and dry, I noticed this little "oops" on the underside of the toe. See those tiny threads sticking out?? yeah.. broken place on bottom of foot. :-(

dang. don'cha hate it when that happens?

I suspect strongly that this is not the fault of the dyer, but rather the source of the commercial yarn. The damaged places are not evenly spaced (at least not to my eye) so I am uncertain as to how it happened.
It is difficult to find really perfect yarn blanks - yet this skein would have been a reject if I had been shipping them out, because of just how badly it was unravelled. The spot I snapped the photo of was not the worst, rather just one that I saw when my camera was handy and the light was ok.

My sock ultimately came out quite pretty but there was one last issue that made me go "huh ?" to myself.... take a look at the top and the

bottom of the foot..........  now look at the ankle...... yeah, see those lovely little moving stripes on the ankle, and then that big spot of color on the top of the foot? Well, there's a big patch of red on the bottom of the foot.... durn. another color flash. The odd part is that I completely am baffled as to why it "misbehaved" in such a manner (rather than pooling during the gusset phase). I was back down to my original 60 stitches, and it "shouldn't have done this. go figure.

Overall - hat's off to this dyer for achieving an amazing, vivid, colorfast red... and I hope that he/she has no other issues with damaged skeins in her blanks. Her colors are deep and very pretty. Some folks don't mind the color flash spots, but I guess that I am more a fan of stripes. I will be most interested to see if sock number two has a color pool on the foot as well..

I had a great time test knitting this one. I'm off to finish sock number two, and then back to our regularly scheduled cable sweater.