Skip to main content

Autumn Leaf Socks

Southern Cross Fibre's October fiber clubs, both on Polwarth, included a colorway called, "Autumn Leaf." I decided to try to make matching socks, with mixed results, as you'll see.

I broke the fiber into two pieces in the middle of the length, and then I split each long piece into six more-or-less equal weight strips. Here is a picture of three of the strips (1/12 of the 4 oz fiber, each).

Southern Cross Fibre - Polwarth - Autumn Leaves - prepped

Then, I spun each 1/12 of the fiber into a single, as shown here:

Southern Cross Fibre - Polwarth - Autumn Leaves - singles

I plied three singles together, using three from the same half, lining up the colors as much as possible. Here are the first two pairs of three-ply yarns (half the fiber):

Southern Cross Fibre - Polwarth - Autumn Leaves - first 2 3-plies-washed

And wound into balls, ready to knit "matching" socks...

Southern Cross Fibre - Polwarth - Autumn Leaves - first 2 3-plies-wound

So, I started knitting socks, using David's Toe Up Sock Cookbook, and used up the first half of the yarn. I had a couple of setbacks, mainly because the two yarns weren't exactly the same thickness. I got the first sock through the gusset, careful to allow for fit, and then knit the second the same number of rows... but the second yarn was skinnier and the sock ended up too small. I frogged the second sock back to before the gusset and made it longer before re-knitting the gusset. After tweaking the second sock and using up both of the first two skeins of yarn (1/2 the fiber), the socks looked like this:

Autumn Leaf Socks - First Half of Yarn knitted

Then, I had to go back and spin the second half of the fiber. I was having some trouble with breakage and generally driving myself crazy with treadling like mad to make skinny yarn, when I finally followed some advice to use a smaller whorl. After some searching, I found my smaller whorl attached to the back of my wheel, where it has been since the day the Ladybug came home in 2008. Go figure. After switching whorls, I made much faster progress and ended up with two more skeins of yarn which looked remarkably like the first two skeins:

Autumn Leaf -Second half of yarn

Yes, those really are two different skeins than the first pair!!

So, I joined my second half of yarn and finished my socks.

Autumn Leaf Socks Done 2

Autumn Leaf Socks Done 3

I was trying really hard to make socks that matched... Well, they're pretty close...

I also have just about enough yarn left to make some mitts. The leftover yarn is shown in this shot:

Autumn Leaf Socks Done 1

Happy Knitting,
Lisa Kay

Comments

Robin said…
Those are amazing!!!!!! I think they match great.