Good stuff

 Hand spun, worsted 10-ply Aran

The yarn is not designed to be easy to knit.  The yarn is designed to have very high fill, so as to produce a fabric that is exceptionally warm,  durable, and very comfortable to wear.  Knitting this yarn into the desired fabric is a ferocious effort!  On the other hand, the yarns that are easier to knit do not produce the same fabric!  Do I want "easy to knit" or "warm,  durable, and very comfortable"?

What do you want?

I had to spend days reworking the needle tips to find a shape that allowed knitting this fabric at a good pace.  I had to modify my knitting technique. I had to put padding on the knitting sheaths.  The fabric is worth all these efforts.

The shape of needle points is important, and different yarns require differently shaped needle points.  And some projects are much better knit with blunt, curved needles, that are rotated into the fabric.

  

"Bombproof" fisherman's socks being  swaved from

 worsted 5-ply, sport-weight, high-ply twist (non-splitty)  handspun from Romney fleece.

Such needles (pricks) require a knitting sheath optimized for this technique.

Good products may take more effort!  I would rather put in more effort and get a better product than just do it the easy way for a lesser product.  How about you: Do you want easy?; Or, better?

I have been spinning, and knitting 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 14 ply yarns for some years now; and, knitting swatches (socks, etc,) to figure out how the various yarns behave.  I have plied yarns firmly and softly, and cabled them as 2x2, 2x3, 3x3, 3x2, 4x2, 5x2, and etc to see how each of these yarns behave as fabrics.  I have compared my-spun with mill spun.  I know how to spin/ply yarns that are not splitty; and, I know how to produce yarns that are easy to knit.  Been there. Done that!

Mills need to sell "easy to knit yarns" because not all of their customers are superior knitters. Consider for example how many modern knitters are so dedicated to their craft, that they make their own needles.    Likewise, not all hand spinners, are superior hand knitters. And, being more members of a social club, than craftsmen seeking mastery, they are not willing to make the effort to spend  YEARS of working out how to spin and knit a particular, exceptional fabric.  They do not follow paths to fabrics that require special tools and special skills to produce. Special fabrics also require the insight to predict even the existence of the fabric. 

One gets to special fabrics by beginning with the end in mind.  One does not just stumble onto special fabrics,  rather, one must visualize the tools and skills that will be required for the fabric, before the combination of  tools and skills required for a particular fabric can be developed.  If you are buying your tools, materials, and skills at "Stitches", then you are not going to get to "exceptional fabrics".

Most modern spinners use commercially available spindles and spinning wheels, so they are not going to spin yarns that are difficult to spin on modern commercial spinning wheels (e.g., worsted spun, 5,600 ypp singles).   Most modern knitters use commercial needles, so they are not going to knit fabrics that are difficult to knit on such commercial needles. In contrast, I spend years making the spinning tools that I need to spin exceptional yarns that are difficult to spin on modern commercial wheels. AND,  I spend years making the knitting tools that I need to knit fabrics that are difficult to knit with commercially available knitting needles.

Exceptional yarns and fabrics are outside of the social boundaries of modern spinning groups (e.g local guilds and Ravelry).  Mostly, modern spinning and knitting is about being a member of the social group, rather than of producing exceptional textiles.

Those that cannot do, criticise.

How many of  you have actually worn objects of hand spun worsted 10-ply Aran yarn so that you have a basis of comparison?  How many of you have seen cakes of handspun worsted 10-ply Aran yarn so that you have a basis of comparison?  How many of you have made objects of 10-ply Aran yarn, (and worn them in a good, long, hard, cold rain?)  The truth about seaman's sweaters is only found in  a good, long, hard, cold rain!   If I was knitting objects for Siberia, then in 5 of the plies, I would have used a finer wool, spun woolen.  That fabric is not as durable, but it is softer, and warmer for the weight.  It is also harder to knit, and more likely to felt/shrink when abused.

Going to all woolen, produces a yarn that is much easier to knit, but not nearly as durable and  the high country (and Siberia) have long winters.

I had to sit in the snow, and watch the whole parade.

(long lens on tripod, easy peasy photography in the dawn's early light)

It is a wild mountain goat, near the top of  a wild mountain, in wild Montana. 

I took this with a handheld Nikon F4 with a 50 mm lens.  

There was some sitting in the snow, waiting.
All things considered, this ledge is about as warm as
the Northern Tree Line in Siberia.

Let us know when you have spent enough time sitting in the snow
to get such pix.

Fashion

I was recently told that I should go back to school to learn something about fashion.

I understand fashion as a status display.  I know that at it's best, it is a combination of excellence in design, materials, craftsmanship, and - marketing. I understand the delicate balance between the arty desire for something new, and the demands of functionality and wearability. I have been in the sweaty circles of designers pushed to go too far; and, the production of collections that lack wearability.

That is not the kind of stuff that I knit. (I would never admit to sacrificing wearablity for novel design effects!!)

I am more likely to knit something that you would want to wear when sailing, or hiking, or skiing, or while tending ewes that are lambing in a blizzard, or when you are checking on the neighbors during a hurricane, or restoring power after an ice storm, or shoveling the driveway after a snow-storm or gathering wood to keep the wood stove going and the house from freezing..  Oh, you do not do these things? So what!  You are not dead yet.  You may need to do something like them in the future.  In which case, you will need warm fuzzies.  Then, think of me, and knit them.  It is not fashion, it is knitting.  Not all knitting is about fashion.

I was told that the stuff I knit is far too tight to be considered good knitting.  However, I see QEII at Balmoral wearing sweaters knit just as tightly as I knit.  If the Queen can wear it, I can knit it. Scottish castles are cold drafty places. No matter how many heaters and tapestries there are, warm fuzzies are welcome.

A well knit object is one that fits its purpose.  Sometimes the purpose is to show skin, and sometimes the purpose is to keep the skin warm.  The good knitter knits objects that serve their purpose.  I always knit to serve a purpose.  Everything that I knit is designed for a particular range of temperatures and conditions. Mostly, tightly knit 5-ply makes a nice 3-season sweater for local  conditions, and spring/fall wear in the Sierra. ( We closed Buckeye Campground, and it was a little  cool.) Winter in the Sierra wants 6 or 8 ply.  Summer in the Slot wants 10 -ply.  Thus, I choose the sweater to match the conditions.

I started knitting because I wanted warmer woolies.  Anyone that finds fault with that does not understand cold.  She says, "I live in Canada, I understand cold!"  No!  Living in a tent in cold weather or  fishing for cod on a fine April day off of Fortress Louisbourg will give you a whole new understanding of  the value of warm woolies.

Real, hand spun, 10-ply Aran yarn

Plied up from worsted singles that I spun over the last 4 years. It is it 211 yards of hand spun 10-ply weighing 196 grams (504 yards per pound.)  It can be done.

Plying was done on an Ashford Jumbo flier running about 300 - 400 rpm, so plying took a couple of hours.

The singles were on bobbins held by a new Lazy Kate:

In use, it was clamped to a foot stool.

Most of the effort in this project was adjusting the LK. The concept was designed for 5-ply and 10 ply required some thought so the yarn paths did not cross and interfere.  And the original design was for smaller bobbins. Thus, a second set of taller dowels had to be made and finished.  And, I had to compensate for the differing twist in the various singles being used.  This is done by putting in 2 or 3 dowels, and weaving the single between them to provide tension. All in all, these were all lessons that would have be learned sometime.

Over all there are ~4 hanks of 10s in the project, so hence forth the time from fiber to finished 10-ply is about 12 hours of spinning and 2 hours of plying per 200 yard skein.  Time to spin/ply the 1500 yards of  full worsted, 10-ply yarn for an Aran sweater would be ~100 hours.  This time can be dramatically reduced by not producing true worsted singles.  Some of these singles were spun before I got the Alden Amos fliers, and thus they took longer to spin.

Fibers in the various plies include Cotswold, Romney, Suffolk, Merino, and Rambouillet. There are 2-plies of navy blue, 2 plies of light blue and 6-plies of natural white. This was as we say, "A stash buster."

I can get a full hank of  5-ply on the Jumbo Bobbin, so a lot of my 10s are on larger bobbins that will hold a full hand of single.  However, since the Jumbo Bobbin will only hold ~ 1/2 hank of Aran, in an 10-ply project, I would just work with smaller bobbins.

It is now a cake ready to knit.