A Tale of Two Yarns – 2KCBWDAY1

Day One: 28th March. A Tale of Two Yarns.

Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

I decided to participate in the blog week again this year.  Today’s topic has mulled around in my head, and the only thing that I can think of to talk about are sock yarns.  I tend to gravitate towards finer gauge yarns, and lately sock yarns for a lot of my projects.

My tried and true time-tested favorite sock yarn is Jawoll by Lang.  This was one of the first sock yarns that I knit with about 15 years ago, has been around for years, and I have quite a stash of it in my yarn cabinet.  When I was putting away a bunch of hand knit socks that I had washed over the weekend, for both myself and my husband, the socks that have worn the best, held their shape the best, and are the most versatile were made with this yarn.  A few years ago I was trying to convince my LYS to stock sock yarns.  The answer that I got was that “none of our patrons knit socks”.  I retaliated that the sock knitters did not come to their shop because they did not carry sock yarns.  So, I ordered a vast array of colors of Jawoll in the mail.  Soon after it arrived, the same LYS tried to get me to come in and look at all of their new sock yarns, and wasn’t it so much fun to knit socks (amazing what happens once you drink the water).  I said that I was set for quite a while.  This sock yarn also comes with a matching spool of reinforcing thread inside each skein for the toes and heels (toes especially for my husband).  Varying colors and tweeds are available, but definitely with a machine-made look to them.  the gauge is fine enough to allow for colorwork or cabling and not have it be too thick.  It has handled the test of being my husbands favorite socks that he wears to work all winter long, and only 1 pair have had to have toe replacement.

Here are some samples from that yarn:

So, a few years ago, I was wanting to try some more of the hand dyed sock yarns from the companies out there.  I joined the Socks That Rock sock club for 2 years, and made 12 pairs of socks with their yarns.  The colors are gorgeous, apart from my dissatisfaction with the patterns was the fact that the yarn itself was thicker than I preferred, and very tough to work with.  I often felt like I was knitting with cotton instead of wool.  I have given most of those away, but kept a couple for myself.  I have not had wearability issues with the yarn, but they remain house socks, as they do not fit into any of my shoes (unlike the pairs above), and they have not faded like I have heard others complain (and I even dry all of my socks on the line in the summer).  However, they do not seem to be holding their shape, and have become rather floppy socks.

Now I am in 2 sock clubs, and get yarn and patterns for both together every other month.  This is a more interesting experiment, as the patterns are more intricate, and the yarn is from a different Indy dyer each time.  That way, perhaps I can find that perfect balance of fineness, and color options.  In the meantime, I have a lot of the Jawoll to knit from, and still 2 skeins of the coveted Woolmeise sock yarn.

Blog readers

People other than Manning actually read my blog.  The concept still amazes me, and I got my biggest surprise the other day when Vivian Hoxbro posted on this site that she was honored that I named my wing shawl the “Obama Shawl”.  When I look at the stats (which took me quite awhile to figure out), it is fun to see where the links come from.  Mostly Ravelry and a link on a crafts website to my Fair Isle sweaters (an honor that I am totally floored by).

Ravelry has been fun too, seeing what sweaters get the greatest hits.  Surprisingly enough, it is not always the sweaters that I think were the most creative, or took the most time.  Currently it is the Ballerina by Hanne Falkenberg at 845 hits.

It has been cold, so I have been pulling out sweaters to wear around the house, and trying to use a different one every day.  My favorite house wearing sweater is one that I finished last year, but during my non-posting phase.  It is a cable sweater from a pattern from Knitters magazine (9-Lane Interchange by Uschi Nolte).  I have since canceled my subscription, as there was very little content that interested my, but I have 2 sweaters that I love from there.  Seems like the patterns have been “dumbed down” in recent years.  On this one, I love how the cables intersect, and the texture.  Surprisingly enough, this pattern is not in the Raverly database, and my adding it would take some thought, not sure how to do that.  It is warm because of the bulky cables.  My mistake on this was in the weaving in of ends.  Because it is reverse stockinette stitch, and the yarn is tubular, the duplicate weave in stitches how on the right side of the garment.  I don’t think that I can really fix this, as it is already finished.

This photo of the whole sweater is not as good, I will update it when I get a new one taken:

second try

A second try in 2 respects.  I wrote this post once and it disappeared during the save process.  And my second try at knitting has been fruitful today.

It appears that I might have enough ease in the Sonatina sweater to block it out to size.  It is drying right now, then I can start on the sleeves.  I guess that I will have to make them the same incorrect size and block them out, otherwise the sweater pieces will not fit together well.  Lesson learned.

In my frustration, I pulled out my sewing machine and sewed and cut the steeks for 3 (yes 3) sweaters.  My bohus Stickning Blue shimmer, the Floral sweater by Slovig Hilsdale from Poetry in Stitches and a baby Dale pullover (no specific recipient, just needs to be a girl).  These 3 have litterally been sitting in boxes, drawers, and bins for years waiting for me to get up the courage to sew and cut.  I figured that I had potentially ruined one sweater that day, why not 4?  I spent the entire Friday (cold and very snowy) just knitting.  It was exhausting, but rewarding.  Now to the button bands and sewing up.

Sonatina in progress

I’ve been working on the Candice Strict sweater, and have the sides and back almost complete.  I am not loving it as much as I did when I bought the yarn.  That however, seems to be a pattern for me, and explains why I knit things up and then do not finish them.  I guess that I would be called a process knitter.  The gradation of color is wonderful, and I want to explore this concept further.  I saw a great fair isle sweater on Ravelry that I loved where there was a reverse gradation of background and accent colors.   I am hoping to finish this in a week or so, there are a lot of stitches in this sweater.   Just to the underarm is 120 rows at 296 stitches—35,520 stitches.  No wonder it is taking me longer.