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?

Knitting needle tips

 I have been moving toward blunter/flatter knitting needle/ knitting pins/knitting pricks for several years now. For a long while, I thought flat tips were better for knitting and domed or rounded tips were better for ribbing.

Today, I recognize that as a lack of skill.  Now, I like flat tips for knitting and purling. I like flat tips for ribbing. With skill from real practice, they are faster.  Perhaps, if I sit down and practice, I will be able to knit bobbles with flat tipped needles. (There might be 10 cakes of real 10-ply Aran yarn, in the stash.) However, from here I think pointy needles/ knitting pouch is a better toolkit for panels of brioche stitch.

Flat tipped (needles) do not  work well as hand held needles - they really do need a knitting sheath.  

And, knitting  sheaths work better with flat ended needles/pins/pricks. 

If  I need pointy needles for a substantial bit of knitting,  I likely use a knitting pouch. If it is just a few stitches, I will use them in a knitting sheath, or just hand hold them.

If you are going to FINISH a good stream of  fine socks (30,000 stitches per sock) per year, a knitting sheath and flat tipped needles are the easy path.

Ridge and Furrow

A famous pattern for gasney sweaters, also works to keep debris out of hiking socks, and to give added flex and stretch at the ankle to avoid wads, creases, or stress on the heel that can result in wear.

On low socks, a ridge and fur pattern can keep the sock from slipping down into the shoe.

Ease and Durability of hand knit sock.

I knit my socks to fit.  That raises the question of how much negative ease to avoid the wads and creases that can cause blisters.

The thing is that too much negative ease causes socks to wear quickly.  Thus, negative ease should be minimal.  And, a firmly knit fabric requires much less minimum ease to avoid blisters.

Firmly knit fabric, knit to fit, works well for socks.

Then, put a clock on the ankle to make the sock easier to put on and take off.

Clocks on Socks

These days, clocks on socks are mostly seen as decorative.  However, clocks can also be functional.

Clocks can provide extra padding around the ankle to protect the ankle.  They can provide extra warmth around the lower leg which can be very helpful in cold environments and particularly for fisherman's rubber boots.  And, pattern at the ankles can provided extra ease for putting on  and taking off firmly knit (warm) socks.

Between the extra thickness and the extra ease, clocks can greatly increase the warmth,, wear ability, and speed of knitting socks for cold weather wear.

Weldon's

Weldon's Practical Knitter was a series of pamphlets in the late Victorian era that taught women to knit like ladies -- not like professional knitters.  It was a guide to "hobby" or recreational knitting.

Weldon's did not discuss the tools or techniques used by professional knitters to produce professional quality objects.  A knitter using the Weldon technique had to invest huge amounts of time to knit the fine objects as presented in the Weldon's patterns.  It was the conspicuous consumption of leisure time.

As Modern knitters felt that they had less leisure time, they went to lower gauges and simpler patterns. Many, many modern knitters say they can knit socks in a few hours (http://www.knittinghelp.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40796 ) ,http://www.mothering.com/forum/66-arts-crafts/536314-how-long-does-take-knit-sock.html , - but these are very soft fabrics that do not endure as socks. The knitters justify their looser gauges as being "softer".    http://glennaknits.com/2013/05/10/the-thing-about-handknit-socks/    Glenna points out that the soft fabrics do not retain their good looks for long.   http://glennaknits.com/2013/05/10/the-thing-about-handknit-socks/  And everybody seems to be looking for ways to make more durable socks.

I observe and record, I do not judge. Being that kind of guy, I would rather put twice as much effort into my socks and have them last 10 times as long.   That way I have hand knit socks to wear with only 20% of the effort compared to the knitters that knit softer fabrics.  Socks that are knit tighter, last longer.

For folks that have limited time, and want the old professional quality hand-knit objects I point out the old tools.  For example,  I point out that using a knitting sheath, the professional knitter of circa 1840 was able to produce 2 pair of socks per week at gauges that are much finer than any of the patterns in Nancy Bush's books (mostly in the 7 spi range, from 1400 ypp sock yarn knit on 2.5 mm needles) .  The truth is that worsted spun, long wools like Suffolk, when spin fine and knit fine are smooth and silken in texture.  Long wool spun worsted retains it good looks for a long, long time.  Long wool is lustrous. Lustrous socks are beautiful. When spin fine and knit fine they feel wonderful against the skin.  And, they are ever-so- durable. (One caveat is that each grade of wool needs to be spun separately, so that each single contains only one grade of wool.)

Now, I did not learn to knit until I was past 50, and it took me another 10 years to work out all the details of  using a knitting sheath.  Much of my study on knitting sheaths was devoted to "weatherproof" fabrics for seamen and cabmen, rather than how to knit socks quickly.  Thus, I cannot call myself a fast sock knitter.

Most knitters and most modern knitting competitions time knitting stitches over a brief period (few minutes) and when knitting rather loosely e.g., DK weight yarn knit on US4 needles. In theory, these folks can knit the 2,500 stitches in a fine sock in an easy couple of hours of  knitting, so 2 pair of socks a week should be very easy.  On the other hand, I do not see many modern knitters that can knit a Nancy Bush Pattern sock in a day, and the Nancy Bush patterns have only half as many stitches in them as the sock fabrics that I like.

The antibiotics have knocked down much of my  Lyme Disease caused palsy, so these days it takes me an easy day's knitting to make a men's boot sock at ~ 6 spi (worsted weight yarn knit on US1 needles) and a couple of days to knit a sock at 10 spi from 6-strand cabled sock yarn at 1650 ypp on 2 mm needles. This are both smooth, firm fabrics that are desirable for many objects.  This is the result of looking back to the professional knitters (1840 and earlier), and using the tools that Weldon's pointedly ignores.

I find it peculiar that Nancy Bush talks about knitting sheaths, gansey needles, and swaving, but does not address the tools' powers to rapidly produce fine knit fabrics in an ergonomic process.

Ribbing

Socks knit from fine, multi-ply or multi-strand yarns do not need ribbing for stretch. These fabrics have enough stretch in the fabric.  However,  knit to fit - you do not have the crutch of ribbing to hide defects in fit.

This has implications for interpretation of old art for the presence of knitting.  Look at the socks and hose in Weldon's, and  it is difficult to determine if the fabric is knit or woven.  It is even harder working from an oil painting or fresco.  You may not be able to knit like that but, people can and do, and people did.   I find that textile historians tend not to be able to knit that well, beginning with Rutt.

Earlier, I mentioned that the current generation of sock needles are 8" long. These days, my finer needles corresponding to UK 16, 17, and 18 are 14" long, and I have stopped using the shorter needles in these sizes.  A work in progress on these needles is difficult to transport, and thus, these days all the fine knitting is done at home.   (Just a year after I got a knitting bag big enough to hold my gansey needles, I have stopped using them).  My favorite chair while knitting with the long needles remains a wooden folding chair - because it gives clearance for the knitting sheath and the needle.

The leather knitting pouch works very well for the more flexible, blunter needles (if any 1.5 mm needle can be called blunt  ; )  that I am using these days,  and I could live with a knitting belt as my sole knitting support.  I do like the knitting belt for knitting in the car or on aircraft.  And, certainly the Shetlanders knit gloves professionally on such long needles.  However, swaving with bent pricks is a game changer for fine gloves, and one cannot swave with a leather knitting belt.  Thus I need to keep my knitting sheaths for swaving. And I do think that the right knitting sheath is faster than a knitting belt. On the other hand, a knitting belt is faster than the wrong knitting sheath. And if one is switching back and forth between different sizes and lengths of needles, it is difficult to always have the right knitting sheath at hand.  And on socks, I like Eastern Cross Stitch on the sole, and swaving does not do that easily, so currently all socks are knit on 8"  straight needles with a knitting sheath.  Right now, the only WIP being knit on a knitting belt is a gansey from 6-strand fingering yarn on 14" long 1.5 mm knitting pins.  It is a nice fabric.

At this point, I think that modern knitting patterns are the result of trying to make a silk purse out of fat, 2-ply yarns.  There was a time when wassit was a standard yarn, used for utility knitting.  It was 5-ply.  The resulting fabric was durable and elastic. It was DK or sport weight, but could be knit on UK 13 or 14 needles to produce a very dense, elastic fabric.   Then, as we started using cheaper 2-ply yarns, they did not have as much elasticity, so we started doing more ribbing.  Ribbing is a trademark of a knitter that does not use multi-ply yarn.

When I started spinning 5-ply, I replicated the commercial product.  It produced stitches that "popped!" More recently, I have been making these yarns with less ply twist. They have to be steam blocked to balance, but they produce a denser fabric without the needle holes. I like it a lot.  Not as much stitch pop, but over all, a more attractive fabric.