Socks

"A ball of yarn is the potential to make a dream you have come true"-Melanie Falk

 

Somehow I get curious about making socks. I don't know how make a sock, beyond making a tube and calling it a tube sock. I decide it give it a try.

The plan is to start from the very basics. 

I notice that I do not have a sheep. 

So I get a book about spinning wool, and a book about identifying different kinds of wool and which kinds are good for what. 

 

One thing I note is that some breeds of sheep, with names like "Polypay" are promoted for their good wool as extra side money benefits to the farmers who enslave the sheep primarily for the purpose of murdering them and eating them. This practice is ancient, but obsolete now because we don't need to eat meat to survive anymore. So I decide to avoid acquiring this kind of fleece. Instead I will look for breeds of connoisseur wool; ones good for spinning sock yarn, with the idea that no one would want to kill the provider of such great spinning wool.

 

I search the interwebs using words like organic and ethical. I study my fiber books. I visit my local sheep and fiber festival, looking at prize winning fleeces. I talk to neighbors with fiber animal pets.

 

After several months of research, I gaze upon an assortment of freshly shorn fleeces laid out all over the back deck. This sock adventure begins with dirty, greasy, raw fleeces. 

 

I trim the dirty ends off each lock, pick out the bits of field grass, and wash the locks in hot washing machine water (no agitation!) with liquid wool soap. 

 

These fleeces are just dripping with lanolin though. A second wash is needed. I wash the locks in smaller batches the second time with a little concentrated eco dish soap in a crock pot of nearly boiling water!

 

The summer wind and sun provide the drying, and soon I am spinning sample yarns. I pick a soft four ply Cormo/Merino yarn for the main body of the sock yarn, and a stronger four ply cable spun with a Romney/Corriedale fleece for the heel and toe. I spend days spinning very fine yarn. It takes five times longer to spin four ply as singles.

I dye the spun yarn with blue and green food coloring in the crock pot with some vinegar. By now my fine spun yarn looks pretty fat.

 I watch a utube on how to knit socks on your circle loom and follow along with it. I use a 31 peg loom, she uses a 24 peg, but it should not matter...

It does. I pull my creations off the loom with great anticipation and find socks big enough for a baby elephant! Soon I am un-knitting my precious yarn from the 95% finished socks!

The next day I start all over with recovered yarn balls and the 24 peg loom...

Finally...

Here is my very first pair of socks, made from scratch! Tah dah!

 

"I like making a piece of string into something I can wear"-unknown

I wonder how these socks will wear?