I’ve decided it’s time to give WGW yarns a bit more of the limelight normally taken up by farm animals. My plan is to alternate Yarns from the Farm posts, with a Yarn Edition followed by a Farm Edition. I’m hoping this will satisfy both the crafters and the animal lovers among you.
This will be the inaugural Yarn Edition, featuring the new range of colours in our 4 ply (fingering) silk merino blend. We’ll show you the colour range, talk about the patterns we have for this weight of yarn, showcase some beautiful hand-dyed skeins, and finish up with a short video from Rebecca Robinson of Augustbird, who was instrumental in getting us started creating the silk merino yarns back in 2015.
NEW COLOURS
We’ve added eight new colours to the previous five, filling out most of the standard WGW colour palette of nineteen colours. All of the silk merino 4 ply is plied in the ‘twist-on-twist’ style, which significantly reduces pilling and improves wear. Click here to order a sample card. Click here to go to the shop.
PATTERNS USING WGW 4 PLY FINGERING
There are lots of patterns for WGW 4 ply yarns, both on our website (where they are free with yarn purchase) and on Ravelry, a popular website for knitters and crocheters. Two favourites among our customers are Inverto Mitts, by designer Nichole Lubke (The Restless Knitter), and Mel Harrison’s Maeve’s Garden, a spectacular crochet project.
From Nicole: Like my popular Reversus hat, Inverto Mitts are similarly knit inside-out to maximise the use of the knit stitch for a quick and easy project. Only the lace panel is worked in purl. Once finished, turn your mitts inside-out to reveal the pretty lace panel nestled in a bed of reverse stocking stitch.
Designed for White Gum Wool 4ply, a lofty and surprisingly warm 100% sustainable Australian merino yarn. Expertly hand-dyed by Augustbird Yarns.
From Mel: Maeve’s Garden is inspired by the wonder small children have when exploring their world. It is a heavily textured design with lots of bobbles, popcorns and puffs combined with front and back post stitches to create interesting twists and surprises. Maeve’s Garden is a complex level pattern that requires focus, concentration and counting.
CALL FOR PHOTOS OF PROJECTS BY WGW CUSTOMERS
We’d like to showcase finished projects by WGW customers in future Yarns from the Farm. If you have a photo you’d like to share, please email it to nan@whitegumwool.com.au for use in a future Yarn Edition. We’re happy to have projects in any ply and in hand-dyed or our commercially dyed yarn.
Just like her sister cardigan who stole so many hearts, Floozy Too is deliciously comfy, with a great big splash of “ooh la la”.
She’s the sweater for leaping, wandering and feeling incredible. She’s moody, beguiling, fantastic with jeans, and she’s pretty jolly fabulous over dresses and skirts too.
Knitted from the top down, so you can try her on as you go, Floozy Too uses slipped stitches to create her stunning colourful yoke.
You’ll just work one colour per row! Nothing complicated, just simple, easy knitting that’s suitable for every level of knitter.
Her relaxed fit makes Floozy Too the sweater you’ll reach for day after day!
Which colourful combo will you use for Floozy Too?
For this edition, we’re showcasing a jumper knitted by Rebecca Robinson of Augustbird Yarns.
HAND-DYED 4 PLY SILK MERINO
Melissa Hughes of Changeling Coloured Yarns specialises in long gradients, and custom dyes our rope yarn in 1.5 kg lots for our Cloudfall blanket kits. She’s recently started experimenting with 4 ply silk merino for socks and other projects. Shown here are 200g skeins of her Half Rainbow colourway and 100g skeins of her Chocolate Lily.
Rebecca Robinson of Augustbird created these luscious skeins using WGW 4 ply silk merino . She’ll talk about them in the video at the end of this post.
SOME TECHNICAL INFORMATION
All of our silk merino 4 ply is plied using a technique called twist-on-twist. Twist-on-twist is just what it sounds like: there are two stages of plying. For the first stage, two strands are plied together. Then three of those pairs are twisted (plied) together to get the final yarn. This means the little crossways fibres in the yarn, the ones that cause pilling, are mostly tucked inside where they can’t get caught and start the pilling process.
WGW 4 ply specifications:
Meterage: 472m (516yd) per 100g
Gauge: 28 stitches x 36 rows on 3.25mm (3 US; 10 UK) needles
Using this yarn for socks:
We initially created this yarn to replace our 10% nylon-reinforced sock yarn, wanting to get away from using synthetics with our beautifully soft superfine merino. We hoped the high tensile strength of the silk, along with its resistance to felting, would make a good substitute. We also expected the twist-on-twist construction to increase the yarn’s ability to withstand wear. After a couple of years of experience using this yarn as a sock yarn we can report that it is not quite as sturdy as our original nylon-reinforced sock yarn (now out of stock), but certainly wears better than the straight merino 4 ply. Like so many things in life, this is a compromise. If you plan to wear your socks everyday, in boots, you may only get 6-12 months of wear from the 4 ply silk merino. If you are less hard on your socks, you might not notice the difference.