Over the past few months, I’ve focused on spinning yarn specifically to use in my Erlbacher Speedster circular sock knitting machine (CSM). Spinning, swatching, and knitting CSM socks with handspun yarn has led me to make these observations and conclusions about using handspun yarn in a CSM.
Your results may vary, depending on your yarn and machine plus several variables from the cylinder count to the number of weights. I fully encourage you to spin small amounts of yarn to knit swatches and uncover the combination of variables that you prefer. See my video for all of the discussion of these experiments:
CSM Cylinder Sizes
When knitting CSM socks with handspun yarn, the key is figuring out how fine to spin the singles and how thick the final plied yarn will be. The thickness of the yarn will need to work with the cylinder you choose for your machine.
While the diameter of the CSM cylinders is constant, the number of slots or stitches can vary. In the photo example here, the cylinder on the left has 72 stitches and the cylinder on the right has 48 stitches. The space between the stitches is larger when there are fewer stitches.
One important variable is to ensure that your yarn can fit into the channel when folded. A yarn that is too thick will not fit into this channel.
With the 60-st cylinder, I measured the channel opening to be 3.5 mm wide. This means that 3.5 mm goes into 1 inch 7.25 times and therefore can accommodate a yarn that is approximately 14.5 WPI.
Here’s my illustration of this concept, not to scale. You can see here the number of 3.5 mm channels that fit into a 1 inch space. Therefore, you can see 14.5 strands of yarn laying in that same 1 inch space. This is why we are aiming for approximately 15 WPI.
Thinner yarn will easily fit into this space and you can increase the gauge by adjusting the tension dial to lengthen or shorten stitches. But thicker yarn will have a difficult time fitting into the channel and feel tough to crank on the machine.
Knitting CSM Socks with Handspun Yarn PDF
I’ve compiled all of the details about how I spin and crank my socks into a downloadable ‘Knitting CSM Socks with Handspun‘ PDF guide, including notes about my handspun yarn, CSM cylinder comparison, links to supplies, tools and more.
Handspun Polwarth+Silk CSM Socks
Equipment
- Circular Sock Knitting Machine (I used an Erlbacher Speedster CSM)
- 60-stitch cylinder for CSM
Materials
- 100 grams SweetGeorgia Yarns Polwarth+Silk spinning fibre spun into approximately 400 yards of 3-ply handspun
Instructions
Spinning the Yarn
- SweetGeorgia Polwarth+Silk fibre in Midnight Feast, Gemstone, Farm to Table. Here, I spun one 3-ply yarn with a final measurement of 15 wraps per inch (WPI) and knit a sock on a 48-st cylinder and a 60-st cylinder. In terms of colour management, I spun one bobbin of each of “Midnight Garden”, “Gemstone”, and “Farm to Table” and then plied all three colours together. The singles yarn measured 32 WPI before plying. I used a continuous backwards worsted draft for all of the spinning.
Cranking the Sock
- Using a cast-on bonnet, cast on with waste yarn.
- At the 3 o’clock mark, switch to main yarn. Reset the counter and add weights (I used all three).
- Crank one round without heel spring.
- Engage the heel spring and crank until 20 rounds on the counter.
- Take the weights off and hang the hem. Add the weights back.
- Crank another 20 rounds.
- Work a deep heel (I use half the needles, plus one extra on each side) using heel weights as needed.
- Crank foot rows (I crank 60 rounds with the 60-st cylinder and 55 rounds with the 48-st cylinder for my foot.)
- Work short row toe over half the needles.
- Switch back to waste yarn and remove the sock.
Video
Notes
