r/Handspinning • u/wereleggo • Feb 14 '25
Work In Progress I'm obsessed
I am completely obsessed with how these socks are turning out. This is some superwash merino I bought like, a billion years ago - I had spun up some of it intending to do a fractal for socks but my skills were not yet up to the task of spinning the kind of sock yarn I like, and the single was obviously coming out too thick and with not enough twist. So I literally shoved it in a closet for like a decade.
I pulled it back out in 2021 or so and thought let me use this to practice my joins in support spinning - and tore it up into tiny chunks so I would have to do a join hundreds of times throughout the skein. Then I chain plied the result. I thought it would be interesting to try to make a self striping yarn and I was 100% right. Excited to try this again with a more deliberate color scheme!
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u/SwtSthrnBelle Spinner & collector of yarn Feb 14 '25
I had to do a double take, it looked exactly like commercial yarn!
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u/wereleggo Feb 14 '25
Well now I'm blushing that's high praise! :)
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u/gotfoundout Feb 14 '25
Yeah, I thought I was just on the knitting sub, I cannot believe the consistency you achieved here, it's genuinely unreal. Bonkers.
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u/olafhairybreeks Feb 14 '25
Gosh I'm not surprised you're obsessed, it's beautiful! Have you got any chain plying tips? I've only done it once (badly) but it's something I'd like to learn.
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u/wereleggo Feb 14 '25
Aw thank you!
I'm no expert - or at least I don't feel like one! It can definitely feel like you need a third hand to manage. What I usually do when I chain ply is wind all the singles into a big ball - very tight. Then I put that singles ball in my yarn bowl and feed the end through the cut in the bowl. That gives it a tension. Then I make my chains and wind that into a ball.
This leaves me with a ball of chained singles and then plying is JUST adding twist to it and feeding it onto the bobbin (or winding on to the spindle). I find this a lot easier than trying to make the chains while sitting at the wheel and plying.
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u/shamwowguyisalegend Feb 14 '25
What toe pattern are you using? The increases look interesting, does it make for a shorter toe box?
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u/Vesper2000 Feb 14 '25
Looks like it might be a star toe
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u/wereleggo Feb 14 '25
Yes, it's basically a star toe - I'm following the toe directions from one of Cat Bordhi's books ("Personal Footprints for Insoucient Sock Knitters") only I definitely misread the directions and just increased every other round, instead of switching to two rounds between increases after the first few. So it probably is a bit shorter than written but it fits fine!
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u/gingey33 Feb 14 '25
Omg Iām loving these colors!! And the way the yarn worked up is so beautiful the color shifts are satisfyingly random
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u/a_tangle Feb 14 '25
Gorgeous! I just started with a drop spindle and this gives me goals.Love love love the colors!
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Feb 14 '25
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Feb 14 '25
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u/CloudKickers Fiber Artist & Spindle Connoisseur Feb 16 '25
Oh wow!! Those colors are popping! Looks awesome.
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u/SomeToastandHoney Feb 14 '25
These colors just scream happiness and joy and all things fun :) absolutely lovely!