Spinning for Socks
Whenever I’ve spoken to anyone in the military, they all seem to agree on one thing: never underestimate the importance of a pair of clean, dry socks. According to more than one former soldier I’ve spoken to, it’s often the single most important item in your pack. The lowly, under-appreciated pair of socks can make or break a soldier’s health — march for a day in wet, grimy socks and your feet can develop sores so bad that they can put you in the hospital. (I know one soldier for whom that actually happened.)
I’d say that a pair of handknit socks is one step better than just any regular pair of socks. (Maybe not for soldiers, but for the rest of us.) When you slip on a pair of handknit socks, it’s like putting on the coziest, most comfy sweater you own. For your feet.
I first learned to knit socks when I was a college student in Wyoming, and my then-husband had a job that required him to spend long hours outdoors on the cold, snowy, windy plains. His boots were waterproof but not warm, and he was really hard on his socks — we constantly seemed to be buying new ones because he wore holes in them so quickly. And while socks aren’t the most expensive items around, when your budget is tiny the expenditure can add up.
Knowing that handmade items are often more durable than store-bought ones, I thought I would at least give sock knitting a try in the hopes that I could not only make a more durable sock, but a warmer one, too. I went to the local knit shop in Laramie and picked out a couple of skeins of Cascade 220 — a basic, workaday wool that you can’t go wrong with. This was nearly twenty years ago, and Cascade 220 is still a workhorse yarn that comes in a huge variety of colors, available at most knit shops.
Being a poor college student, this was a pretty big expenditure for me, and I probably stood there for a good ten minutes, fingering the wool and really wondering if I could produce something that would wear longer and be warmer, and thus be worth the precious dollars I was about to part with. Along with the wool, I picked out a coordinating color of reinforcing nylon thread for the heels and toes, since that was where he was wearing holes most frequently.
I found a pattern and knit up a couple of pairs. They worked up quickly — that’s the beauty of socks, you see. Sweaters can feel boring when you’re mired in the long dark of knitting the body that never seems to end; hats are just knitting around and around. But socks are constructed. Socks are built like the frame of a house: first there is the toe box (if you start at the toe, that is), which transitions into a foot that doesn’t feel too long to knit. After that, there’s the heel, which can be knit in myriad ways depending on your preferences. Just when you’re ready for the heel to be done, you’re knitting the leg, which can be as long as you have the patience for. Knitting a pair of socks is like taking the scenic route on a short trip.
These first pairs of socks that I knit worked out so well that I ended up knitting some more. They were more durable, and definitely warmer. Over the years I refined my technique — I moved from knitting the socks starting at the top of the leg and knitting toward the toe, a technique that required measuring the wearer’s foot and then measuring your sock as you go to ensure that it’ll fit, to eventually creating my own version of a toe-up sock pattern that didn’t need any measuring, only the foot of the wearer nearby to try on the sock as you knit.
To this day I love knitting socks. They’re a quick project that results in something cozy and comfortable, and can be done in a huge variety of yarns for fun show-off potential (there are even clear boots and shoes that will let you show off your socks). Knitting has always been something I’ve enjoyed doing because of the intersection of utility and creativity, and socks are like the comfort food of knitting for me because they maximize both. There is something immensely satisfying about taking a single length of straight string and using it to craft and shape a molded, fitted garment that’s so important to comfort.
And now I enjoy more of the process of making a pair of socks: I hand-spin the yarn that I use to knit them.
Over the years I’ve tweaked a basic recipe of fiber to maximize all of the qualities I want in a good pair of socks: warmth, comfort, and durability. I start with my own alpaca fiber from my herd — usually either Benz’s black fiber, because it’s great for blending, or Cinnamon’s sturdy fiber, because it’s white and thus great for dyeing. I use my wool combs and a diz to create combed top from the fiber, which gives me a true worsted preparation. A worsted fiber preparation maximizes the durability of the resulting yarn, especially when paired with a worsted draw during the spinning. My recipe adds Blue-Faced Leicester wool for added bounce, body, and durability to the fiber, and nylon that helps to reinforce it all for a sturdy yarn. I dye and blend the fibers myself, usually after they’ve come off the combs as top but before I spin them — this way, I can see the colors I’ve used for dyeing blend in interesting ways as I spin them into a 3-ply sock yarn. During the spinning stage, I’m careful to slightly overspin the singles — adding extra spin adds energy to the fibers, which adds durability. Have I mentioned durability enough when it comes to making your own socks? Sure, you want to make soft socks, but soft socks won’t last you. And one of my goals in my yarn recipe has been to get as much softness as I can while also controlling for durability.
I’ve been selling my sock yarn lately, but I decided that the most recent skein I finished was going to be for myself. My son gave us a small painting he did in school that he called “Green Fire”, and I loved the colors so much that I dyed some BFL in shades of blue and green, inspired by the painting, and then combined it with some black alpaca fleece from my boy Benz, and nylon for reinforcement. Having worked in digital media for a while, I was surprised to see how Benz’s black fleece added depth to the green colors without making it darker — colors in fleece, it seems, don’t appear to work quite like color blending in the digital world.
I’m in love with the resulting yarn. I can’t wait to see how the socks I knit from it turn out. When I think back to my first crude efforts at making socks and compare them to what I can make today, the difference is stunning. But those initial socks were just as loved as the socks I make today.
An older version of this post originally appeared on my web site, carynvainio.com.
