Monday, September 01, 2008

An Exercise in Cableing

I've been wanting to try the cableling technique I read about in Spin Off magazine. My partner Ingrid from the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenany Ravelry swap sent me two wonderful and colorful skeins of handspun yarn. I thought I might use some of it to try something new!

Cableing is a spinning technique that creates a very strong and sturdy yarn. The process has several steps. First you spin four bobbins of singles. Then you ply the yarn into two bobbins of plied yarn. Then you reply the plied bobbins to increase the twist. Then you take the two replied bobbins and cable them together in the direction of the original singles twist.

Ingrid had already done the first two steps for my with her handspun. So I sent the two skeins of yarn back through the wheel to tighten the twist.





Then I cabled the two bobbins together to create a bobbin of cabled yarn!





I'm really pleased with the result! And it was fun to experiment! Thank you Ingrid! And I still have plenty of the uncabled yarn to make a pair of socks! I've also tried branching out on another pair of socks this weekend.

I purchased the new book by Melissa Morgan-Oakes, 2-at-a-time Socks, and I thought I'd give it a try! It's a little strange at first and it looks like a tangled mess, but it actually works! I'm going to keep on going with the pattern!

7 comments:

Anita said...

It turned out really pretty, even though you lost me with all of the plying! LOL (I haven't advanced past a 2 ply so far)

knittingknirvana said...

I don't have the book, but I took a 2 socks on 2 circs class from Cookie at SNA. It is soooo wonderful to have a complete pair finished at the same time. And they are exactly the same when you knit them at the same time. Sure genius!

Ingrid said...

Great result!

I feel like a proud momma or grannie of sorts ;-))

Linda said...

The cabled yarn ooks great, I read that article too but haven't tried it yet. I like way the colours knit up.

Anne said...

Thanks for all of the pictures. I've been wanting to try cabling but have gotten distracted with other spinning projects.

affectioknit2 said...

That cabled yarn is beautiful.

Jknits said...

the cabled yarn is gorgeous! How fun. I think you will enjoy doing two socks at once - I'm sure you're finding that it looks more complicated than it really is.