We have been big fans of Coop Knits Socks Yeah! 4ply since its launch a few years ago. If you look closely at the fibres in a skein, you'll notice the huge range of colours within the one shade. What that means is that you can take pretty much any 2 shades with a common fibre colour and put them together as an effective colour combination. The DK has the same colour effect, so we've been looking to work with it for a while.
When we started thinking about Something New To Learn About Cables, we laid down some criteria about the type of yarn we wanted to use – it must be a smooth, springy yarn in solid, or semi-solid colours to show off the cables most effectively. If a yarn lacks an inherent springiness, the manipulation that the stitches undergo can leave them overstretched, whereas a yarn that bounces back into shape is ideal. A smooth yarn that gives the best possible stitch definition will ensure that your cables pop out of the fabric, allowing them to really shine. Colours should be solid or semi-solid since variegation will distract the eye from the surface texture of your stitches.
The glorious shades of Socks Yeah! DK. Image © Jesse Wild.
Socks Yeah! DK fulfils all of those requirements for showcasing the best from your cables. Having knitted with it extensively in producing the swatches for the tutorials, I can safely say that it is smooth enough to give really sharp definition in the cables. Furthermore, it is forgiving if you accidentally drop a stack of stitches from your needles as it is sticky enough to hold in place so that you can retrieve your stitches before disaster strikes and this obviously means you can cable without a cable needle quite confidently. As a sock yarn with nylon in its blend, you can be sure that when you work in this yarn, your finished objects will be very hard-wearing.
New shades have been added recently, including some favourites from the 4ply range, so you have the unenviable choice of which of the 16 you will use for your project.
The small accessories from Something New to Learn About Cables. Image © Jesse Wild.
Whether you fancy knitting a hat or a blanket, you can browse the Something New to Learn About Cables kits and yarn (along with the book of course!) over in our online shop.
Whether you've cast on already, or are planning your next cable project, do drop in to our Ravelry group. The cables knit along kicks off on Sunday 1st April (full details here), but in the meantime there are plenty of threads to jump into. What are you knitting? is a good one to start with. Don't worry about reading back through the thousands of posts, just click the "reply to thread" button and tell us what you are up to! Our group is a friendly place, full of knitters waiting to cheer you on with your next project, and there might even be some prizes...