99.5% of the time, I wear handknitted socks made with Paton’s Kroy yarn, which is made with superwash wool and nylon (the latter for durability - and believe you me, the yarn is durable). I’d like to try socks made with 100% wool. I read in Rebecca Burgess’s book, Fibershed, that corriedale wool makes hard-wearing socks. I got this wool from a farmer with a small flock in Door County, WI, and am going to make two pairs; one spun on a drop spindle and one spun on a wheel.

I figure I’ll get a better feel for the wool if I do the drop-spindling first. It’s lovely wool and looks browner on the spindle than it does in roving form. I’m going to make three singles, for a 3-ply yarn. I have read (somewhere?) that three plies are better than two for socks, as the round yarn created by the three strands has more strength than the flat yarn created by two strands.

I wish I could take credit for these perfect spheres but I cannot. I wrapped my singles around tennis balls, new, never before used for tennis or dog play.

I entertain my daughter by telling her, when I use this, that Man is a Toolmaker. I made it out of an old, frequently used 2 x 4. It is surprisingly versatile.

The other two eyes are reserved for my bottom-whorl drop spindle, which is the first spindle that ever graced this lovely and elegant tool.

The spindle wants to slide out of my tool (what shall I name her?) and so I put the tome I am currently reading at the corner to act as a brace.

I spun about 35 grams onto the spindle - that was about all it wanted to hold. Commercial sock yarn comes in skeins of 50 grams, so I am just making a rather wild guess about how much to spin. If I have about 105 grams of 3-ply handspun, how will that compare to 100 grams of 4-ply commercial yarn? We shall find out!

Plying the three balls together will come next.

Another hack - I put the balls in an old dye pot and ply them from there.

My spindle got pretty full, so it’s time to make a hank. Back to The Tool, ready for the niddy noddy.

I think my noddy is a one-yard noddy. The yarn feels pretty good, not too tightly plied. There’s a lot of lanolin in the wool, so it’s sticking together nicely.

The yarn is definitely not over-twisted! Now it’s back to the spindle to ply the other half.

Yes, I forgot to measure my total yardage. I will simply knit, allowing the yardage to be and to remain one of life’s mysteries.

This yarn is quite a bit thicker than the Paton’s yarn, so instead of 56 stitches, I need only 40 to make it fit my foot.

I only needed 49 rounds to get to heel territory (the usual is 55 rounds) - that is about 7”/18 cm for me. These socks are luxury defined - they feel like velvet on my feet!

Since I’m a bit short on yarn, I had planned to work these as ankle socks in stockinette stitch. I changed my mind and will work 2x2 ribbing and make them as long as the yarn will allow.

I wasn’t sure how much yarn I’d need for the various parts of the socks, so I used both ends of my yarn balls. I need enough yarn to sew the pieces together and I want to save some of the yarn just because, so I’m going to stop knitting here.

I wove the top bands and “bodies” of the socks together and they are pretty nifty!

These are scrumptious! I don’t know how well they’ll hold up, but we shall see.

Here’s Bobbin No. 1 from the wheel-spinning portion of the experiment. I think I’m spinning this on the wheel a bit finer than I did on the drop spindle.

By the way, this is how I measure the weight of my spun yarn: I write the weight, in grams, of each bobbin on its little head, and then after I spin, I weigh the bobbin + yarn and subtract the bobbin’s weight to get the weight of my spun yarn. I have 93-53=40 grams on the right bobbin and 85-48=37 grams on the left bobbin. I’ll grab 3 more grams of fiber and spin it onto Bobbin No. 2, and I should be rocking at 40 grams per bobbin. Of course, I confess to spinning the second bobbin more tightly, so my lengths won’t match, but there you are.

All three bobbins are done now, weighing in at 40 gm each. I’ll let them rest for a couple of week and then ply them together.

Here the are in all their glory. This yarn seems to be a fair amount thicker than the yarn I spun on my drop spindle; I do have more control when my hands are “in” the wool, so to speak.

The yarn definitely floofed up quite a bit. I might be making some rather thick socks!

I ended up with 120g of 3-ply yarn. I did remember to measure the length this time but seem to have lost that little piece of paper . . .

The spindle-spun yarn (small ball) is quite a bit narrower than the wheel-spun yarn (large ball). We’ll see how the knitting goes!

I need more stitches using this fluffier yarn to make my usual-sized sock than I did for the the thinner spindle-spun yarn. I have 44 stitches on my needles for these pretty babies.

I won’t go through all the gory details again, but I’m making these exactly the same way that I made the spindle-spun pair, except that these are longer and so I increased eight stitches at the back for shaping over the calf.

They fit, but I could have made them even a bit bigger; but then I wouldn’t have been able to make them nice and long.

My legs always look like they are not attached to anything when I do these sock photos, but I assure you, they are attached to the rest of me. It is July and I will need to wait until the cold days return before I can start wearing my new friends. I will update after they have some experience.

I love, love, love these socks! I have been wearing them once a week or two (usually for two days straight) and they are my very best socks ever. They are soft and warm and, so far, durable. The smaller pair (spindle-spun) took that early and ill-fated trip through the washing machine but aside from a bit of felting, which gives them character and makes them more durable (I hope), there have been no ill effects. There is a bit of pilling on all four heels, but it is not bad. I thought about running a thread through these guys to shore them up against future thinning, but decided to see how they do as is. So far: excellent!

I bought a dark brown ball of roving when I got the gray balls, and I think that there will be enough for another pair of socks if I make two strands of the dark and one strand of the light.

And here they are, looking good enough to eat.

I ended up with about 90g total. I do have a bit more of each type of roving, so I will spin the rest and add it to the pot. I would love to be able to make another long pair.