A Rabbit Hole

As I started knitting,  yarns seemed to be based on singles of 5,600 ypp.  Gansey yarn was 5-ply (1,000 ypp, allowing for contraction as a result of twist).  The "worsted weight" of  Paton's and Lion Brand was 840 ypp  (e.g., 6-ply grist produced as a 3 or 4 ply yarn requiring  much less  twist and much cheaper to produce).

Paton also produced BeeHive  wool  which has a grist equivalent of  2 singles of 5,600 ypp, but was produced as a 4-ply yarn. It was based on singles of  11,200 ypp. Such singles have a lot of twist and are durable. One must pay for that extra twist and durability, but it was worth it. 

"Jumper yarn" was traditionally a 4-ply yarn with a grist of ~ 2,500 ypp. It was very good stuff. It was/is the basis of the sock fabric I want to knit. Most of the commercial lines of this yarn have been discontinued. Some of it is on ESTY. Over the years, I have bought samples of it from discount bins, but I never learned the technical knitting skills to use it to its highest use, and I did not understand how wonderful fabrics knit from these yarns could be. Now, these brands of wool seem to have been replaced with synthetics.  I still like campfires, so I am not looking for synthetics.

Few hand spinners spin 5-ply gansey yarn because it requires a lot of twist and is thus slow to produce.  The 4-ply, 2,500 ypp needs more than twice as much twist as gansey yarn.  It takes me 3 days to spin yarn for a gansey that takes me 9 days to knit so I should not feel too bad if it takes me more than a week to spin yarn for a sweater that takes me more than a month to knit.  

Spinning yarns based on finer singles is a real rabbit hole. If singles of 11,200 ypp are better, perhaps singles of  33,600 ypp would be much better? That is not a very deep rabbit hole - I spun some 10,000 ypp, 3-ply lace yarn a while back and decided I did not like knitting lace. For now, I am focused on "sock fabric".

As I study sock fabric, I am learning some technical skills - but mostly it is about the value of knitting good stuff. I thought I learned some of that knitting weatherproof ganseys.  No, I just scratched the surface.  The more we have cheap synthetic mass produced clothing, the more precious good clothing becomes. 

Good knit objects are some effort to produce, but if they are really good then you realize that they are worth much more than the effort put into producing them.   I want real value from my textile efforts.

My wife's mother was a very good, fast knitter - and her needles clicked. As I said, there are other reports of knitting needles clicking. As I have gotten more proficient with 1.3 mm needles, they have stopped clicking.  If my needles are clicking, that means that energy is being transferred to the other needle, instead of to the yarn. The needles are levers for moving loops of yarn. Energy that does not go into the yarn is wasted. And, clicking needles mean that one hand is transmitting stress and trauma to the other hand via the needles.  Why should I let one hand bang-up the other hand?