> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Does anyone have a recommendation for finding top quality aran yarn? Of > course I could eventually spin enough, but I'm wanting to make one of those > historically gorgeous arans from Gladys Thompson's "Jerseys, > Geurnseys, & Arans."
Many years ago (hmm... around 30 years) I bought back some Aran yarn from the West of Ireland and knitted an Aran jumper. This yarn was very hard, oiled and quite tight spun. If you design something following the examples from Galdys Thomson's book, you'll find that the needles aren't huge and the stitches per inch are quite high, so you get a tough water proff jumper suitable for boating! The jumper wore like iron and actually improved the more it was washed - I was just trying to figure out how to patch the elbows 10 years later when it was stolen from some changing rooms. Anyway - what all this waffle is about, is to say that very trad. Arans aren't soft and fluffy. I did some handspinning with different fleece samples last year to see which I liked best, and for stitch definition, some of the long lustre wools were nice. Wensleydale or Teeswater for softer options or Swaledale for harsher feel. These also had a slightly creamier colour, rather than a bright white. Guernseys are really hard work to hand knit. You can get the special 5-ply wool in a few places (I'm in England, so suppliers aren't very useful). You knit with quite small needles and tight tension - in the round, with a HUGE number of stitches on the needles - and let me recommend NOT trying the traditional navy. Working complicated all over patterns in small stitches in navy blue needs very good lighting! Chris To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
