Holland's Socks

Holland is a little girl in my ward (ie church congregation). She has had five brain surgeries (perhaps more? I've been slightly out of the loop because we've been sick at our house) to remove tumors and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. I think she's pretty brave for a three-year-old! She was in the Squeaker's nursery class at church, and he was very concerned when he learned that "Howwand has an owwie on her head." And so she has a special place in my heart.

Yesterday I called her mom and asked if, since I am on a knitting spree, I could make her a hat. Because she already has a lot of hats, and will not be loosing her hair from the chemo anyway, she said that I could make her a pair of socks instead.

Whee!

I'm really excited about this project. I've picked out the fiber I will use, and I've already decided what color to dye it, and everything. It will be great. Just for fun, I'm going to document the creation of this project step by step.

Step one: preparing and spinning the fiber.

A friend of mine is very generously lending me her drum carder for an extended period of time. She shipped it with a quantity of merino lambswool on it to protect the teeth while in transit. She says that the wool came from one of three lambs - either God (a 5-year-old named him) or Ohio Dawn or Joseph.

I'm spinning from the longitudinal end of the batt, using a semi-woolen preparation. A drum carded batt still has lots of neps and noils, but it is a much better preparation than what I can produce with my hand cards. Hurrah for drum carders!

 And here it is on the bobbin. This is the single - I'm going to navajo ply it when I reach the end of the batt. It won't completely fill up the bobbin, but since I'm knitting socks for a little kid, and especially since I'm going to use some additional yarn of a different color for contrast, I don't think I'll need more than this.

You'll probably notice that it's a little slubby - that's part of the wool preparation. If I used my combs to prepare the wool I could make a much smoother, more even yarn. If you read my blog much when I talk about spinning, you've probably noticed that I don't really use my English combs very often at all. That's because they're really pointy and I don't like having them out when the kids are on the loose.

I could make a true worsted yarn that would wear a lot better for socks if I combed the wool, but I don't really feel that it's necessary because a) she'll probably grow out of them before they wear out, anyway, and b) woolen yarn tends to be warmer, and that's what we're going for with this project.

After plying, I intend to use food coloring to dye this sunshine yellow, Holland's favorite color.

More to come!

Onward to Part Two!