Good morning and happy Friday to you. As you may recall, I asked all of you a few months back about your interest in a non-superwash sock-weight yarn. Then I asked about your preferences, and the majority of you said that you would like a non-superwash sock-weight yarn with a little bit of silk or some other luxury fiber.

After much sampling, I found a really super yarn base to add to my line. I have been working behind the scenes for the last couple weeks dyeing up enough different colorways to introduce it properly. I dyed up four skeins of each colorway. I’ll show you photos of the colorways I dyed up and tell you more about it as we go.

It’s called Feather Sock, and it’s really lovely. I named it that because it is both light as a feather and soft as a feather.

I wanted to find such a yarn base most especially for all of us weavers. A lot of the time, weavers like to full their cloth, which is basically a step in the direction of felting. It makes the cloth thicker and connects the strands together so it is more one cloth and less individual fibers. This only works with non-superwash wool and other protein fibers because they have what amounts to microscopic velcro that can connect together given enough friction and changes in temperature.

At the same time, I have had a few people tell me they simply prefer non-superwash yarn, and this is true for knitters and crocheters as well as weavers.

I already have Buttery Soft DK to fill that role DK-weight yarn, but I didn’t have anything for sock or fingering weight (same weight, different names). I tried a few different yarn bases before deciding that this was the one.

You may notice as we go that it dyes up differently than superwash merino wool. With superwash, the dye tends to strike very quickly and stay in place. With non-superwash on the other hand, the dye tends to move around a little more before striking, so the colors are a little softer and melded together.

There are several reasons that I decided to go with this yarn base. First of all, it had just enough silk to take it from ordinary to luxurious without having so much that it wouldn’t full well.

Second of all, it is made of extra-fine merino–19.5 micron instead of the more typical 21 or 22, so again, it’s really lovely and soft.

Third of all, it’s a 2-ply yarn, and I don’t have any other 2-ply sock-weight yarn bases. What I like about 2-ply is the fact that you can actually see the plies, and this base is still strong enough for warp in weaving.

Last of all, this yarn base is actually a light fingering weight with 490 yards per 100 gram skein, so that also fills a place that was empty in my line of yarn bases. It will be fantastic for lacy crochet and knitting patterns!

Over the last couple weeks I have been quietly dyeing up twelve different popular colorways as I got ready to introduce it, and I’m so delighted to finally get to share this yarn base and these colorways with you.

If you have any questions about Feather Sock or if you have a colorway request, please don’t hesitate to email me.

Ukraine Solidarity Fund

In other news, together we have raised over $500 for the Ukraine Solidarity Fund, and they were matching donations, so that makes it over $1000. I still have to tally up this week’s total, so I know there’s a little more. I have been making the donations each week on Monday. I still have some of Sunflower and Freedom Blue in stock, and I’ll keep them in the dye rotation for now.

Fiber Arts Class

For the last two weeks, I have been helping out with my son’s art class. Last week, the children dyed yarn, and this week they got to do a little bit of weaving with their hand-dyed yarn. They all seemed to enjoy it a great deal, and it was such a joy to get to introduce the fiber arts to these sweet children.

Worsted Weight in Summer?

I do have a question for you. Do you use worsted-weight yarn in summer? Ordinarily I just dye it in the wintertime, but if you make blankets and other such projects in summer, I’d be happy to keep dyeing it all year long. Let me know please.

I hope you have a lovely week. Stay well!