It certainly is a Summer of Sport at the moment. Leaving aside my introduction to Test Cricket mentioned last week, we have just finished following the Euros (all forgotten now) and last night I spent an indulgent evening watching the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics and speculating about what I am likely to end up watching. Definitely the sailing due to our current interest, not to mention the Judo which I became very keen on when my son was doing it many years ago. And of course, there with Team GB, was Tom Daley, bearing the flag. My father, who was watching with us was slightly amazed when I said I recognised him mostly because of his knitting. Did anyone else watch the ceremony? It was hilarious and impressive at the same time – quite a feat.
My tenuous link to the Summer of Sport is to give you some information about Sport Weight Yarn – one of those weights that pops up in popular patterns on Ravelry, but which not everyone knows about. When yarn is spun it is either spun or plied in different thicknesses. Plying yarn means that two or more strands are spun together to give extra strength to the fibre. A roving is unplied yarn and most of the chunky or super chunky that we stock here is roving, although thinner yarns can also be rovings rather than plied. Traditionally knitwear in the UK was actually knitted in thinner fibres, such as 3 or 4ply yarn (I still have people coming in the hope that I might stock it). You can usually tell by the name how many strands there would be in the fibre. DK or Double Knit is twice the thickness of 4 ply, which means that it is traditionally 8 ply, although I have recently discovered that this is not always the case. Aran or Worsted weight tends to be 10ply so not quite twice as thick as DK. And Sport Weight is a 6 ply, so it falls exactly between a 4 ply and a DK. In all honesty, though, the better way to work out the weight of the yarn these days is to look at the meterage and the gauge. Thus there are generally around 400m of fibre in 100g of 4ply, and 225m in 100g of DK. So can you guess what the meterage of a 100g of Sport Weight would be? You guessed it – around 300m.
The thing about Sport Weight is that it can be used a substitute for either 4ply or DK – all you have to do is a gauge swatch and then ply with the size of your needles. Or you might find yourself doing something like the gorgeous Flowery scarf we had at the East Anglia Yarn Festival and which was knitted in Zauberball Starke 6. We also stock John Arbon Textile’s Yarnadelic which is currently my favourite Sport Weight, being soft (Falklands Corriedale) and beautifully dyed. I am knitting the Shepherdess Shawl with it, combined with some Zauberball Crazy and its coming up very nicely.
So there it is, an explanation of Sport Weight, which I hope might have helped those of you who have come across the term in a pattern and not been sure of what it means.
July is so nearly over, only an few more days to go and we are into August which seems quite mad, given how horrid the weather has mostly been until now. Nevertheless, hopefully the Olympics will provide us with some interest and perhaps the weather will continue to improve. Mandy and I are starting to think about our Autumn/Winter stock so we are all about chunkies and Christmas jumpers at the moment. As I mentioned last week (but gave the wrong date), we are starting a new Knitalong on Saturday 10 August – the Salty Days Sweater by Veronika Lindberg. This is a fabulously intricate-looking sweater worked from the top down. It can be knitted either in a DK held together with a mohair/silk/laceweight or in any aran/worsted weight yarn on its own – I am thinking of my favourite Malabrigo Rios for it, but others are looking at a combination of Fleece DK and Exquisite Lace or Colour Lab Aran from West Yorkshire Spinners. Whatever you choose, come along and cast on with us on the 10th at 2pm and with any luck you will have it done in time for autumn.
Finally, I was sad to say good-bye to the Sewing Bee, which finished last week. But I wondered if anyone else had seen the news that Channel 4 has commissioned a similar programme but about knitting! I am fascinated to see how they plan to do it as I for one could not knit anything in a day, let alone a week. I am quite sceptical as to how it would work, but we will see.