In the week leading up to Wool House, I was working on finishing up some Turkey Day Cheviot, with the idea of knitting up some matching socks. I used to knit a lot of socks, but have been feeling rather uninspired of late, so I decided that starting up socks out of handspun might be a good solution.

I had a 4 oz bundle of fibre, so I split it down the middle lengthwise as evenly as I could without a scale, and spun a fine single on the miniSpinner. Once the singles were done, I chain plied (also called Navajo plying) and ended up with two more-or-less matching skeins.

I really like chain plying to preserve colour runs, although many people don't recommend chain plied yarns for socks. Because of the yarn structure (basically a long series of loops, kind of like crochet), there's an assumption that it won't wear as well as a true 3-ply. I have not done the experiment to actually test that assumption (knit two socks, one chain plied and one 3-plied and compare how well they stand up to being worn and washed), but Cheviot is a pretty sturdy wool, so I'm hopeful they'll wear well.

I haven't measured the yardage yet on these. The two skeins seem to be (to my eye) pretty close grist-wise, so I'm optimistic that I'll end up with a pretty good match. Worst case scenario, I'll end up with a pair of socks that start off matching in the feet and run astray somewhere on the leg - I can live with that!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how those blue and grey bits knit up against the warmer colours. And I'm also really looking forward to not having to think about knitting wool socks because my feet are so cold - I'm ready for winter to be over already!

Porpoise Fur