the Soxophone Player

So, we’ve got wool/nylon.

And wool/tencel.

And wool/silk.

And wool/bamboo, and wool/seaweed, and wool/soy…..

But wool/milk?

I always seem to be running short of man socks for my inventory.

Here’s a good candidate:

This is my own 75/25 wool/nylon fingering weight dyed in Prochem’s washfast acid dye colour Clay. A skein is ~ 400 yards.

I guess in the photos they look pretty much the same.

The top pair is size  Large and the bottom pair is size XL. Both knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47, but I knit the XL pair a quarter turn looser on the tension.

The Large pair came easily from one skein. Actually, the XL pair did too, but it was a nail biter with only about a foot to spare! (I wasn’t so worried as I knit the Large pair first and had leftover at the ready.)

Clay is a little on the boring side as colours go, but the variegation gives it a more interesting look. There are lots of guys who would consider these WILD ;o)

Here’s some sock yarn off the drying rack.

It’s been so hot and humid here that my dyed yarn is taking forever to dry.

This is 3 batches of Bright Orange (washfast acid dye) on my own 75/25 wool/nylon fingering weight, and dyed at three different values between full strength and 1/8th strength.

Mmmm. Ginger socks!

I went on a merino knitting binge a while back, but still had a few balls wound, unknit, and taking up precious real estate. That’s now been taken care of and a tub is now reduced to a baggie of ends.

Here is a sampling of Size Mediums, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legare 400. The yarn is my own home dyed 100% merino fingering weight and I reinforced all the heels and toes with Woolly Nylon.

From the left: Grasshopper with Twilight accents, Twilight with Grasshopper accents, Charcoal with Lobster Bisque accents, Pewter with Black accents.

There’s a small pile waiting for toes to be closed too. Maybe tonight.

And here’s a Wine Sock made with assorted left overs. The Lobster Bisque is 100% Merino fingering weight; mixed with 75/25 Wool/Nylon Grasshopper fingering weight, and a crocheted tie string in 100% worsted weight, Plum.  The liner is heavy felt I had made at the defunct Lindenhoff Wool Mill.

This isn’t merino – it’s my own Columbia 2 ply Mule Spun (worsted weight) that I dyed in the same colours as the merino. DW crocheted this Tea Cosy from a book I gave her for Christmas – Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior. Base colour is Grasshopper, flowers in Lobster Bisque with one in Plum.

Scotty didn’t deliver any packages today.

But he did deliver a notice that there were packages too big for his SUV waiting for me at the post office.

Three big boxes to be exact.

This is my own worsted weight 2 ply mule spun yarn in denim.

I had this dyed In the Fleece at the mill – some in denim blue and some in a pale grey, all plied nicely together to get a heathery-style denim.

It looks good – I’ve only opened enough to get started – I’ve  washed up a few dozen and they are now hanging to dry.

I  wash wool when it arrives from the mill to get out the spinning oils. Its a little extra work but the yarn feels soooo much nicer after a post-milling wash!

This wool is from my final sac from last year’s shearing. I had the whole sac done in this heather denim (A sac is about 300 – 350 lbs of raw fleece.)

But I had only half of that shipped as yarn. The other half, well, you’ll have to wait and see  )

Dying in the fleece gives the most even, level coloration in a yarn. The locks of  wool are dyed after they are washed, and then any variations in colour are well blended together as the fleece is carded, spun, and plied.

Some might consider this boring compared to a nice skein painted or dyed in a pot – but – you know – some days its nice to not have any surprises!

This is Foot Loose by Diamond Yarns in colour #16 (some call it Midnight).

And my picture actually looks like the yarn, on my screen anyway.

Foot Loose is 90% Merino 10% Nylon; 175 m/50g

I just cracked this bag, so this is the only pair I’ve knit so far – size Medium, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legare 400.

I’m pleased with how the colours act on this size, and we’ll have to wait and see if they also behave on the 72 cylinder.

OK. This is definitely the worst sock photo I’ve ever taken!

The socks are knit from Koigu KPPPM colourway P803.  100% merino, hand painted. 175 yds/50g.

I knit 10 pairs, took pictures of them all, and all the photos are !%$^%&&$#%.

I googled the yarn and found many pictures. They are all as horrid as mine!

You’ll have to take my word on this one – it is a beautiful yarn in pinky-peachy-orangey-reds. It is loud but not crass (IMVHO).

I thought blues were giving me trouble in the photo department, but reds are definitely an even bigger challenge.

I knit a bag of P803 (22 skeins).

I got:

(besides another lousy photo)

1 pair of Small, 4 Mediums, 2 Medium +, 2 Large and 1 XL, for a total of 10 pairs.

I can easily get a size Medium sock from 1 skein, but I can’t quite manage a Medium +. I run out part way through the toe.  But the ends from Small and Medium are sufficient to finish off the larger sizes.

However – if I were buying by the skein, I’d definitely need to buy 3 for the larger sizes, for my standard pattern.

An interesting thing with P803 – striping pattern made by the dark tones replicated pretty much the same in all sizes – even though I used 2 different cylinders (54, 72) and a different tension setting for each size.

Curious!

Since I put the picture of Pooch on my blog I haven’t been able to get Tiki out of my head.

Tiki was a purebred Maltese owned by a friend of mine in the mid  70′s. (The year, not the friend!).

At the time a new ‘health report’ came out that said 95% of people with MS had a small dog when they were young. All of a sudden small dogs were getting tossed out of windows across the land. My friend had two kids and her husband said, “the dog must go”.

I had little faith in the report, so I gave Tiki a home. She was a bit of a prissy dog and was used to refined living. But she adapted ;o) and enjoyed camping trips and parties.

I can never think of Tiki without thinking of the BBQ we had at a party one year, and how she really wanted the bone.

So, we let her have it.

This is the Soxophone Player, aged 7,  and his dog Pooch, taken in the back yard of his boyhood home.

Pooch’s real name on his papers was Patches, but no one ever called him that.

Pooch was a great and faithful companion and was responsible for my life long love of dogs.  He lived to the ripe old age of 17.

Strangely, my Maltese, Tiki (lap dog during city years) lived to 17, and Jesse’s predecessor as farm companion, Riley, also lived to be 17.

This is a silk blend sock yarn from Online Linie 2 Trend Collection – Supersocke Silk Color. This colourway is # 0111

55 % Superwash Merino 25% Nylon 20% Silk, ~ 200 m/50g

The top pair is size Medium, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Verdun 47.

The lower pair is size Medium +, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Legare 400.

I’m always suprised there isn’t more silk blend sock yarn on the market. Especially this year when silk seems to be enjoying an ‘it’ status. I guess it’s an expensive fibre and may not be in the target markets sited by the commercial  sock yarn companies.

I bought, um, several colourways of this series, but chose to knit this one first because I was on a turquoise kick.

Knitting requires a wee bit less tension to accomodate the lower elasticity of the the silk, but its a breeze to work with. Very consistent gauge, very very few knots (I think it was only 1 in a bag of 10),  lovely feel that you would expect from a silk blend.

Silk yardage doesn’t go as far as pure wool or many other blends, but I was able to get a Medium + sock easily out of 50 g, and very close to Large (not shown).

The most interesting thing about this yarn to me, is the red/white jacquard mini-stripe that is set within the broader solid colour stripes. If you look close (click for larger if you like) you’ll see that these mini stripes are actually a partial stripe – they don’t go right the way around the circumference. This  happens on both the Medium and Medium +, and what I haven’t worked my brain around yet – on the good side you can see this stripe is just one row, but it takes two rows of knitting to make that row, and the jacquard lines up with itself on both rows, whether knitting in 54 or 72 stitches.

I’ll have to contemplate that further when my brain is more receptive. For now, I’m thrilled to see a new twist that I hadn’t seen before!