Fiber Monday - Sock Yarn!

Hey, I'm on the correct day this week! Yay me!

Parts of the week felt very busy, but I did get some time in the studio where I was able to finish spinning the singles for the sock yarn I've been working on. Today I started plying it. I'm probably 3/4 of the way done. Here is what it looks like on the niddy-noddy. (I still need to tie it together and give it a good wash, but I'll probably wait to wash it when I have it all plied.)


Remember, this is the what started as raw  CVM sheep fleece which was a Christmas gift from B. This is my first time making yarn starting from scratch. (Well, truly starting from scratch would involve owning sheep. Since we don't, I'll have to be content with this.) Because the yarn is such a dark brown, it's difficult to really see what is going on. Here's a better photo.


This lets you see the individual strands of yarn a bit better. My spinning is getting a little more consistent, I'm happy to see. This is a 3-ply yarn which means I spun 3 separate singles and then spun (plied) those together to make one yarn. If I hadn't covered it up, you would be able to see this is averaging about 20 wraps per inch, which is definitely in sock yarn territory. (Wraps per inch [or WPI] means that if you were to wrap some yarn around a ruler, this is the number of times you would be able to go around and still fit into that inch. It is a good way of knowing what size yarn you have and what it is appropriate for.)


Here's an even closer picture so you can see how the singles are twisted together.


And a photo a little farther out to give you some scale. This is pretty thing yarn. 


I filled up the bobbin I was plying onto so had to stop and take it off. I still have this much or more left on the bobbins with the singles, so I should get at least another couple of hundred yards of yarn when I ply this together. The length of the yarn on the niddy-noddy is ~470 yards. Definitely enough for a pair of socks. 

The next step is to wash the lighter color wool one more time, comb it, and then spin it into a 3-ply yarn. (This all came off the same sheep. Interesting, huh?) This will be the other color in my imagined colorwork socks. I'll mix the two shades together when I comb it, so it won't be as light as the lighter shade, but will definitely be lighter than the dark brown up above.


I also spun some more of that batt I made a while back. I really didn't like spinning it on my first attempt, but ended up enjoying a lot more the second time. 


I'll be really interested to see what it looks like when I ply it all together. I have no idea what I want to eventually do with it, so I guess I'll just stick with 'turn it into yarn' for the moment.

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