Most of the knitting items I create are done in fingering yarn, or sock yarn. I prefer my Indy dyed yarns from dyers I trust for making socks, hats, scarves and shawls. Some of the commercial yarns are wool and nylon blends, superwash wool yarns that can be laundered in the washer on hand wash and put in the dryer on delicate or lay flat to dry.
My very favorite commercial fingering yarns are a blend of Superwash Merino, Cashmere, and Nylon. But I won’t put a cashmere blend in the dryer. I have successfully laundered cashmere blends on the hand wash cycle of my Maytag washer on the lowest setting but I always lay them flat to dry. If I’m blocking socks I put them on wire sock blockers to dry and hang them up.
You may ask “Why fingering yarn?” It’s fine and takes longer to knit up than worsted yarn in a project. One word. Texas! We live in North East Texas and the opportunities to wear anything knit with worsted yarn are relegated to three or four weeks out of the year in January and February. Don’t get me wrong! There is nothing as nice as a worsted weight pullover or cardigan in colder weather. It’s just that we seldom look forward to week after week after week of cold weather to enjoy thicker knitwear. The temperatures fluctuate. A lot. It will be 30° or colder at sunrise and up to 70° by lunchtime, then start dropping back to freezing after dinnertime. Then we may have a full week of weather where the temps never get much above freezing and are well below freezing every night for that week. You just don’t know!
These are two different Cupido Cowls done in fingering yarn from Fishknits Yarns. The top one is a gradient that I folded to get the photo and the bottom one is a kettle dyed yarn.
These are some of the Sockhead Hats that I have knitted in differing lengths. Over time I shortened the ribbing and the length of the hat itself to suit the wearer, mostly me or Brad. He sleeps in one during the winter months because his poor bald head gets cold!
This one of my favorite shawl patterns, Ludlow, knitted with fingering yarn from Fishknits Yarn.
Favorite socks, Vanilla Sock pattern from Jo Torr, from another skein of Fishknits Yarn.
Rural Texas Knitter 