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by Anne Podlesak
I fell in love with a gorgeous braid of mixed BFL wool from one of the updates at the Two If By Hand Etsy shop.
The colorway “We Took To the Woods” is a fantastic blend of deep bright blue, splashes of yellow-orange, deep greens and browns.
I decided it would be perfect as a pair of cabled socks (I love using BFL for socks). I split the original 4-oz braid into three equal pieces lengthwise using my postal scale to weigh each section (1.33 oz each). I then spun each of the thirds onto a separate bobbin using a worsted technique. (I did a slow forward draft, aka inchworm drafting, and smoothed the fibers down after the twist ran into them.) I overspun the singles slightly to help increase the wear factor in the final yarn.
I then plied these with a nice firm twist into a 3-ply yarn. I wound this off onto my skeiner, added three sets of choke ties, gave the skein a cool bath with some wool wash, snapped the skein a few times and let it air dry.
Technical Details: A 3-ply, worsted-spun yarn, approximately 20 wpi and 350 yards per 4 ounces (1400 ypp), a heavy fingering-weight yarn.
Photos © Anne Podlesak.