Counting

Yarn's dry! In total there's 607 yards of two-ply fingering, plus the felted ball. The hot water bath re-activated the latent twist in the yarn, which turned out to be somewhat overspun. In this case, that's a good thing, as I hope the high twist will discourage felting and partially compensate for the non-Superwash fiber. So Plan A is a go: to knit Lotus Heart Socks by Gina House for Summer of Socks and also for the Ravellenic Games.



The two big hanks are 253 and 250 yds (231 and 228 m). Pretty good spin control, if I do say so myself, and ample for the task. I love the extra sproing of the yarn, although I do wonder if it will distort the fabric – and if something strange will happen when the socks are wet. The sock pattern stitch is balanced, which I think will help stabilize the fabric. Well, we'll see.



As a spinning experiment, I divided a small amount of the roving into dark and light bits, then spun them up separately. The finished yarn is 21 yds (19 m) dark, 13 and 7 yds (11 and 6 m) light, also decent spin control. I'm surprised that the difference in color saturation seems greater in the finished yarn than in the bits of roving.

 

Initially I thought a contrast cuff might look well on the socks. To make certain I have Enough Yarn for that, I did a bit of Ravellenic Games training and knit up two repeats of the cuff motif. Along the way, I started liking how the non-contrast yarn looked and began thinking maybe contrast cuffs aren't all that after all. Perhaps that beauteous BFL sheen is ornament enough.



Even so, I went ahead and frogged the leaves and measured the yarn used. Each leaf takes just under 3 yds (2.7 m) of yarn.



So there is Enough Yarn for contrast cuffs, but only for fraternal cuffs – one light, one dark – not for identical ones. Gentle readers will hardly be surprised that for me that seals it: non-contrast cuffs it is.