I’m pretty careful about scouting for knots when I rewind sock yarn for knitting. With this yarn there aren’t many knots, and the ones that do exist are so well tied that they don’t create an annoying princess-pea in the fabric. They do, however, interrupt the pattern. You can see on the Right sock, near the bottom of the leg, where the jacquard does a quick repeat.

I’m just sayin.

The pair (above pics) is size Small +, knit with 72 cylinder and 36 ribber on the Verdun 47. I knit a 1.x1 rib top and a 5×1 ribbed leg and instep. This is a mid-calf length sock.

And here is the same sock but in size Small, also mid-calf length, using a 3×1 rib on the leg and instep instead of the 5×1.

And here’s Ralph this morning looking decidedly blackly after shearing.

And here is Ralph’s fleece on the skirting table, with the section on the right folded back leftward to show the underside.

This is, no doubt, old hat for folks experienced in coloured sheep, but for me it is new and was quite a surprise. I don’t generally like surprises, but this one was nice. And interesting. I presume the exterior brownliness  is sun bleaching. (?)

oops

Skirting Ralph’s fleece was interrupted:

This is Bloomfield and her twin daughters (yay).  I wasn’t expecting more lambs until Friday. Another surprise!

All of this activity in the barn, and I don’t have time to deal with the third surprise of the day:

Hand delivered by my good and trusty mailman Scotty.

From Lorna’s Laces.

I’ll wait to open this til I get the newborn lamb goo washed off me.

Above is first Shetland fleece shorn on this farm. I skirted each fleece as it came of the sheep, as is usual, then rolled and individually bagged each one. Over the next few weeks I’ll skirt each fleece again. On the first go I get off the manure tag areas and highly contaminated with vegetation spots, and scraggly bits off the legs. On the second pass I’ll get out more of the nuisance bit of vegetative matter. The more I can get out at this stage the less that will come back in the yarn from the mill.

I find the Shetlands have a much more open fleece than the Columbias and I was a little surprised that the Shetland fleeces came off in one piece. The fleeces were actually larger than what I expected too. Though still no where near the size of a Columbia:

(This photo of SIL from a few years ago.)

Something else that totally surprised me was how jet black some of the fleeces were, underneath, that appear brown on the outside. I’ll get some photos of that when I do second skirting.

And this is Cody, who (along with the sheep) did all the work!

I found Cody accidentally on Kijiji while I was looking for something else and he lives not too far from here, on the other side the the Bruce Peninsula to me. Were able to set this up with a few clicks.

He was skilled, careful, thorough and pleasant company to boot. And he treated the sheep gently and respectfully.

A great day!

Ah yes, I remember it well… as the song went, by Maurice ________ and Sophie _____ (if you recall ;o) )

The e-wraps I’ve been doing have all been: e-wrap, knit one row, change applicable cylinder needles over to rib needles. So to do that, I actually put the ribber on before completing the first row of knit so that I can switch out the needles at the beginning of the row before the ribber hits it.

I wondered what would happen if I knit 2 rows instead of one before switching to the ribbing.

Here’s my experiment, using Colinette Jitterbug, colour Sahara from stash. (100% merino, a little heavier gauge than Koigu).

A. With One Knit Row before Ribbing

And B. With 2 Rows Knitting before Ribbing

In the top pair, with one row knit, the loops on the selvedge are two stitch (I think) size, while the extra row knitting renders those loops as single stitch size and looks very similar to the edge on a 1×1 rib.

The two rows knit, B, also has the added effect of a piping-type edge. It isn’t/doesn’t roll, just gives a pronounced finish, and on the outside of the garment, not inside against the skin.

(If you haven’t caught it before on my blog, almost all my photos can click to enlarge if you want a closer view.)

Work wise, I found no difference in difficulty or time between the two edges as both require the same number of needles swapped in and out. I suppose the B pair uses an extra yard of yarn for the extra row.

I only bought this rake in 1976 and you’d think it would last a long time yet.

I’m going to see if I can whittle the left-over handle to a cone shape – since its too big to stick in my pencil sharpener – so I can get a few more miles out of it.

The greens in this colourway are absolutely alive, vibrant, and stunning!

These socks are Size Small, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legaré 400. I reinforced the heels and toes with  Wooly Nylon.

For this pair I used the 36 slot ribber, using only every other slot so as to get a 2×1 rib (vs other pairs I’ve blogged on recently where I used a 27 slot ribber with the 54 cylinder to get a 1×1 rib).

My early efforts with a 2×1 rib used a different selvedge, created by raising on needle of each knit stitch pair, knitting around, then placing those needles back in work. This worked by I was never really happy with the finished edge with that method. Getting a 27 slot ribber allowed me to knit a 1×1 rib that was more pleasing to my eye.

But using the e-wrap cast on creates an instant selvedge, so there is no reason to use the method mentioned above with a standard cast on.

I like the look of this 2×1 rib topper. I can’t say that I like it more than the 1×1, but it is another choice of look, and I think for a smaller foot and fuller leg, the elasticity will be less tight with 18 purl stitches vs 27 in the circumference.

Hint: One of these is not a sheep ;o)

100% Premium Merino fingering weight; recommended by Koigu to hand wash and dry flat. (I use the hand wash setting on my washing machine and dry flat.)

I knit this pair of Size Small socks with the 54 cylinder and 27 ribber on the Legaré 400, with an e-wrap selvedge, 1×1 rib topper and stockinette leg/foot. I reinforced the heels and toes with Wooly Nylon.

The colours in the photos are fairly true on my monitor. I’d describe them as mid-way between pastel and berry/jewel tones.

Bright and cheery socks for a grey day!