The Twist

For our third Cormo experiment I had just one thing in mind: Bulky.

Think of it. What more delicious way to enter a long cold winter than with a plump, three-ply Cormo that almost knits itself? This is a comfort yarn, like your favorite comfort food only better, with fewer calories and a plush wool hug that will comfort you for years.

The yarn’s rounded construction renders a full, mostly steady stockinette with a hint of wabi-sabi wobble. The tighter your gauge, the more noticeable that wobble will be -- that is, until bath time. This yarn adores stockinette and will give you a highly spongy, corrugated garter stitch. But where it really thrives is in knit/purl textured patterning. Cables will be of a phenomenally high relief--just keep in mind that the more cables you work, the more the potential for bulk in the finished garment.

We’ll start playing with color in Cormo 3.0 in January. For now, I’m offering this pure shade of undyed white, right off the sheep’s back.

Wash

If you thought Cormo 1.0 and 2.0 bloomed, just wait until you take your still-wobbly, somewhat vulnerable stitches off the needle and drop them into a warm soapy bath. Give them a few squeezes, let them rest, and only then give them a good rinse (in the same temperature water as the initial bath). The cohesive relaxation and bloom on the finished fabric surface may take your breath away.

Quick Facts

Gauge: This plump, three-ply, combed American Cormo yarn has two distinct modes depending on what you want to make out of it. If your intent is a spongy, decadent cowl or scarf--something where abrasion concerns will never enter the picture--then you can pull out your US 11 (8mm) needles and finish your 3-3.25 stitches-per-inch project in no time. If, however, your goal is a garment where structure, dimensional stability, or abrasion resistance are a concern--which is to say, any kind of sweater--you will want to stick in the US 9 to 10 (5.5-6.0mm) needle range, seeking garments with a gauge of 3.5 to 3.75 stitches per inch. While Cormo 3.0 performs equally well on all types of needles, I particularly enjoyed working it on bamboo needles with a somewhat blunt tip. But the choice is yours: use the needles that feel right in your hands.

Put-up: 120 yards (109m)

Skein weight: 100g

Source: Wool from purebred American Cormo sheep raised in Montana. Scoured at Bollman’s in San Angelo, Texas. Picked, carded, combed, pin-drafted, spun, twisted, and skeined at Kraemer Yarns in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Scoured and twisted into the tidy skeins you see here at Saco River Dyehouse in Biddeford, Maine