Meet Toxic, the November offering from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. Since I opted for the double option this round, I had 8 oz of superwash goodness to play with. Given that this is superwash merino, what else could I do but make some sock yarn? I split my two lengths of top into approximately equal weights (2.6, 2.7 and 3 oz respectively) and predraft each group.

I ended up with two balls of predrafted top that would have long stretches of each individual color (2/3 strip of each 4 oz top) and one that would have a shorter repeat (1/3 from each 4 oz top). My "plan" was to end up with two singles that had more or less the same color sequence, and one single that would be different for most of the skein. Maybe they'd overlap occasionally to give a solid yarn, but not very often.

Here are two bobbins spun up. I started each bobbin with a stretch of bright orange, and only realized when I started plying that the common color starting point was on the inside of the full bobbin. So they all got rewound...

In order to try and keep my singles consistent, I made myself a cheat sheet using some commercial sock yarns. The sample on the top is some Regia I think, and its a 4-ply. The bottom is a 3-ply from Knit Picks. Strangely enough, the Knit Picks single is thinner then the Regia single, but that yarn also had a core thread that it was wrapped around, which may account for the discrepancy.

I'm plying this sucker now - my first true 3-ply - and I'm trying to be a bit technical about it (i.e. putting the same amount of twist in to each length of yarn). It's coming out alright (the colors occasionally match up as I envisioned), but perhaps a bit underplied. If it's an issue when I'm done with a first pass, I'll run it back through to add some more twist. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up this weekend.

And then I'll have to decide on a sock pattern. Any suggestions?

Porpoise Fur