Sunset socks cast-on

As I was spinning the singles I was trying to imagine the finished yarn if navajo plied and if two-plied. Would two-plying mix the colours up too much?

Having decided to try a sample of both methods, I immedately loved the effect I got from two-plying and just carried on. (It's a really dull day today, and so even with flash the colours don't look as vibrant in these snaps as they do in real life.)



The plied yarn contains every permutation of these colours; blue with red, red with orange, orange with yellow, and so on. Sometimes contrasting colours lie together, sometimes complimentary and occasionally a colour matches up with itself giving a yard or two of strong blue, orange or black. It was really exciting, and I saw colour combinations that I wanted to develop in another project.

Spinning the yarn has taken many, many hours. More hours than it would have taken me on the wheel, but I enjoy using the drop spindle, particularly my Turkish spindle, and so used it for the singles and the plying.

I would usually make a skein and set the twist at this point, but it was well-balanced and I wasn't convinced it was absolutely necessary.

So I started knitting my Toe-Up Ginko Socks. I managed to allay my impatience long enough to bother to knit the swatch. Despite not being able to find a pair of 2.75mm dpns as called for in the pattern and using the smallest set I have (3.25mm), the swatch came out spot-on, which is a very rare occurrence. I'm taking that as a good omen! I'm using needles that were my grandmother's and so I hope she knows what I'm up to and is pleased.

I had found with Lolita Legs that the magic figure-of-8 cast-on worked so well that I'm using it here, rather than the short-row toe described in the pattern.