An Experiment in Spinning Yarn: Matching Self-Striping Socks
A couple of weeks ago we had a shipment of new fiber come in from The Yarn Fairy and Pixies. Amongst it was a beautiful colorway of Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and nylon. I couldn't help it, I just HAD to have it. With one glance I just knew this must be matching socks. So once I blinked the stars out of my eyes, I thought to myself, 'How do I preserve these color changes?
I now had an idea for what I wanted the fiber to become. However, I wasn't sure how to make it happen. Opting more often for a mixed yarn, I had never before made self striping yarn, . I definitely haven't made two balls of yarn match.
I have spun fly on the ply before. But, I really didn't want a three ply yarn with slightly more obvious joining areas this time around. So, it was time to go about this a totally different way than I ever had before. It was time to try and make my 2 ply, self striping, matching sock yarn. I grabbed my precious braid of yarn and got to thinking...
Spinning Self Striping Yarn Step 1: Sectioning
The first step in spinning my self striping yarn was to decide that I wanted to preserve the colors. So, the first thing I did was to find a place where the first color started going into the next.. Next, I very carefully pulled that color off of the braid.
The next step was to portion that color into four smaller portions of the same size. I split my little section down the middle, trying to make both sections the same size, then I split both of those sections down the middle. Then they were weighed, to make sure they were roughly the same. I discovered that my scale is not nearly as sensitive as it needs to be. Therefore, I was mostly on my own with the portioning.
Spinning Self Striping Yarn Step 2: Organizing
Once all four sections were in good portions I balled them up. It was important to make sure to put the part that would be the end into the middle of the ball. Accordingly, I made a mental note to start spinning with the outside of the fiber ball. I put it off to the side and began to do the same with each color change. I made each ply its own line. In addition, I was careful to always put each fiber portion in a ball with the inner end being the one that matched up with the color before it, and the outer end the one that matched with the color coming next.
Soon, my little lines became too big for the dining room table. I grabbed some Ziploc bags and carefully placed my balls in there in a way that I would remember, I placed the first ball on the bottom right, the next on the bottom left, the third on the right hand side on the next row, the fourth to the left of the third and so on. During this process, I was careful not to flip any of the Ziploc bags over, or it would have gotten all jumbled up.
The way I placed them in the bag, there was no way in the world that they would not find themselves turned over. So, I lettered each ply's bags (I ended up with 2 bags per ply). I started with A for the left topmost second bag and ended with K for the right bottom one in the first bag I had started with. I also made sure to label each ply together. The result was 8 bags, two #1, two #2, two #3, and two #4. I weighed each ply's bags together and determined that some of the bags were slightly larger. Bags 2 and 4 turned out slightly larger, and those two would be plies in the same yarn ball.
Spinning Self Striping Yarn Step 3: Spinning
Whew! I don't know if I have ever before done quite as much prep work with a braid of roving! Honestly, it was kind of fun and even oddly relaxing, but now I got onto the spinning!
I spun starting with the letter A of ply 1, and made sure to spin from the outside of the ball to the inside. I tried my hardest to keep the ply size consistent and was mostly successful, I went through both bags for that ply, ending with fiber ball K. Then I spun ply 2 in the same manner and plied them together. While binge watching Friends, I went into a nice zen frame of mind and spun and plied the next ball as well.
Spinning Self Striping Yarn Step 3.5: Skeining with speed bumps
Time to skein my yarn! Then, I realized I couldn't find my PVC pipe homemade niddy noddy. Where had I seen it last? Oh yeah, it had become a light saber for my kiddos... I had to pause and go make a new one.
Argh! The suspense was killing me. I didn't know if I had accomplished my mission yet and couldn't even skein the balls up to see if they were even close!
After a brief intermission that involved Home Depot, a measuring tape and pipe cutters, I had my niddy-noddy, and skeined one of those bad boys up. My most recent skein stayed on the bobbin for the moment.
Spinning Self Striping Yarn Step 4: Measuring and testing results
The Wraps Per Inch on both of them turned out to be 16 and one almost 17. Therefore, I had about a DK weight yarn, which was not very close to the fingering I was going for, however they could still make great socks.
Normally, I would have had to wait until I knit both socks up to make sure these two balls matched, BUT my hubby got me an Addi Turbo auto-knitter for Christmas, so I got to cheat! I balled one skein up and then I cranked each skein of yarn through that puppy. I was so excited that I didn't even bother to put the second yarn through the skeining and balling process, instead just cranking the yarn from the bobbin onto the auto-knitter.
When they were both cranked, I placed the tubes of auto-knitted yarn together. I couldn't believe my eyes! Eureka! I had done it! I honestly wasn't sure if that would work out the way I had meticulously planned it, so I did a happy dance!
Results
I am sure that there are methods online just like this. However experimentation is part of the craft, and I must say, mission accomplished! What have I learned?
- It takes time to preserve color changes.
- Don't forget to skein your yarn.
- BFL/Nylon is lovely to spin
Have you ever tried a self striping yarn, or tried to make two balls of yarn match up for a project? We would love to see the results or hear about your adventures in spinning in the comments!
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