Thursday, December 17, 2015

The table at the bottom of the rabbit hole

I have been knitting socks from 1650 ypp sock yarn on 1.75 mm needles, and liked the fabric - a lot.

I have some OLD commercial 3-ply spun from LONG wool (1650 ypp), and:


Knit on 1.5 mm needles it comes out at about 140 or 150 stitches per square inch.  It is a lovely skin soft fabric with good drape.  It is not weatherproof, but it is very warm. It breathes and is feather light.  If I was living in a thatched  stone hut heated only by a peat fire, it is what I would want next to my skin. Heck, I might want it here in California and just switch off the heat.  I like this fabric more than any modern hand knit fabric that I have seen in the last 30 years.

A sweater would be about 500 grams. I do not have that much of the old, long-wool, sock yarn.  I do have some Meridian Jacob that looks and acts just like good Shetland fiber,  I might have to re-purpose it.

I figure it would take about 200 hours to knit a Jersey of this fabric or about 300 hours to knit a Gansey from this yarn.

Note that the Norfolk II gansey on pg 85 of  Gladys Thompson is knit form Paton's 4-ply Beehive at 240 stitches per square inch.  Paton's 4-ply Beehive had a grist of 2,700 ypp. There are traditions of knitting fine yarns on fine needles.

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