The Great Glamorgan Sock Project!

I was teaching at Wonderwool Wales this year, which was fun, and because I didn't have a stall this year I had lots of lovely spare time to wander around the show and see what was what. And one thing I did spot was The Great Glamorgan Sock Project, which was fascinating to have a good prod around. The idea is to have socks spun and knitted from every breed of sheep currently living in Glamorgan.

There seemed to be hundreds of pairs of socks hanging up, with information boards behind with details of the sheep, their wool, and the spinners and knitters. I got talking to the organiser, Jane Bissett, about what an excellent project this was, and how nice it would be to be involved if only I lived in Glamorgan! 

Apparently this is not a problem, and there were still a few breeds unaccounted for! 

I was led to another stall round the corner and presented with a big sack full of an Aberfield fleece! I will admit this was a new one to me, but a quick google gave me the information in the link above: it's a modern breed geared to meat production, but the fleece was surprisingly nice. 

I'd already bought a fleece from Fernhill (silver grey longwool) and a lovely Corriedale from Olwen Veevers, which was all I was allowing myself, so this one was a bonus. 

As we were in the throes of moving house at the end of April, all the new fleeces had to be left until we'd mostly moved, so ended up in the garage. And when I finally got it out and started washing it, I discovered my spin-dryer was on its last legs; I just about coaxed it to get enough of the fleece washed to spin socks, and then it conked out. 

Anyway, I spread the Aberfield fleece out on the driveway on a sunny day, and was pleasantly surprised. The edges are kempy and coarse, as you'd expect from a breed that isn't being bred for wool at all, but the stuff in the middle - over the back and shoulders - was really rather nice. This photo below shows how much was remaining after I'd taking the best bits; the amount I took was just enough for one wash, and this is when I discovered that the drain in the corner of the driveway was blocked! (We are finding all sorts of stuff that haven't been maintained in this house since Mum had dementia.)

Look how beautifully white it came up after washing! 

The wool is actually ideal for socks. There's a nice bit of body and structure to it, and it's certainly not what you'd describe as 'soft' wool. The staple length in the parts I was using was 4 to 6 inches long, a nice length for combing. The staple was much longer round the britch end, but also much much coarser; it would make excellent baler-twine-like thread, should I want to spin any. The neck wool was the finest, but also rather matted. But the area over back and shoulders was surprisingly consistent in length and quality.

Given that I'm spinning for socks, I decided to comb rather than card the wool, so I pulled out my Viking combs and devoted a few evenings to prepping for spinning. I only gave it two passes between the combs, which gave me an airy and fluffy top. (Three passes would have been smoother, but also much more wastage, not to mention wear and tear on my wrists and shoulders.)

And then I decided to spindle-spin it, as it's only a pair of socks' worth, and I was still feeling very spindle-oriented after teaching in Wales. I used my Hepty spindle, as it's a sturdy workhorse, spins fast and efficiently, and will take a nice big cop. It fits nicely in an M&S metal biscuit tube and so gets carted around everywhere.

I wound the singles into three balls (three spindles' full per ball) over a paper core, and then plied into a 3-ply yarn on my Majacraft Suzi Pro. It made a nice fingering-weight yarn, pleasantly rustic, but would feel nice on the skin and hardwearing. (This photo was before washing the plied yarn; it did fluff up on washing, but I seem to have forgotten to photograph that stage.)

I knitted the yarn into the Oak Ribbed Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. By the time I started knitting, all our books had been brought up from the old flat and reshelved, so I knew where most of them were and laid my hands on this one straightaway. (Mind you, we've taken six large boxes to the Oxfam book shop in Ilkley, and I still have four tall bookshelves and two small ones stuffed with what we've kept.)

This was nice portable knitting. I used 2.5mm Knitpro Zing doublepoints and it took about a week of fitting it in around and during work.

Of course, one thing (among many) that I have misplaced in the move are the sockblockers for my socks. I have both of Mark's blockers, of course, both his sock and his kilt hose ones, but my littles ones have vanished. I ordered a new pair from Etsy, assuming that this would instantly make mine reappear, but no luck. But the new ones are nice (if not as sturdy) and worked well. 

So there we are: my contribution to the Sock Project. Just the thing to get me back into properly writing about the stuff I'm up to again.