Yarn Review: Mothy and the Squid Donegal Sock

First Impressions:

The yarn comes in a hank, and neatly packaged; looks very similar to what was on my monitor. No surprises! I was excited about this yarn in particular as my husband and I are avid scuba divers who enjoy macro photography.

Preparing:

Hank fit neatly on my swift, and rolled off nicely onto the ball winder. The dye job was even, and none of the neps caught or snagged.

Knitting Up:

This was great to knit up; there were only a few (<10) neps amongst the entire project which were loose enough that they came out or I had to tug them out.

It is worth noting that when I blocked out both the socks and the swatch, there was a significant pinky-purple dye bleed – it took a good soak and then another good rinse before the water ran clear. I would definitely suggest pre-washing the skein, and not blending this with anything that wouldn’t handle a bleed okay. I have another skein of something similar to this for holiday socks come the winter, and I think I’ll be soaking it with a colour-catcher before I knit it up as a preventative measure.

Fiber:

I had requests for information about the plies and yarn itself, so here’s a super-zoomed picture of it. You can see the shirt fibers coming out here very easily, and a bit of the twist of the plies.

Wear:

This yarn was knit for my husband into a plain vanilla sock. At a US0 tight gauge, he feels they are bulletproof and also incredibly comfortable: the yarn softened a little bit after blocking. I was able to get a good-sized pair of men’s socks out of these, and I would have been able to get more out of it, if I hadn’t gotten bored out of my gourd and been willing to knit more. I had enough left for the swatch, and realistically another 1-2″ of sock. Husband has since pointed out that I need to drop some stitches or go down a needle size for the cuffs since they’re a bit loose there. That said, it has taken a lot of effort to pry these off of his feet for a quick wash and a photo opportunity.

They stretched out significantly on his feet, but then blocked back very nicely to their original shape.

Purchase Experience:
I picked this up from the dyer’s Etsy store, and everything works up just like, or remarkably like, the image on the webpage. No issues or concerns about misrepresentation here!

Studio/Dyer: Mothy and the Squid
Base/Line: Donegal Sock, 85/15 merino/Donegal tweed neps
Weight: Fingering
Colourway: Flamboyant Cuttlefish
Put Up: hank
Purchase: From Mothy and the Squid Etsy store.