Dearest sock adventurers,

As many of you will know Mary Heath from Local and Bespoke and I have been jointly working on the Tuff Socks Naturally project for just over a year now. Tuff Socks Naturally, is an open, collaborative project exploring more sustainable alternatives to superwash and nylon in sock yarn.

In November last year, we wrote our first posts and we’ve been spinning, knitting, road testing, and experimenting ever since. We’ve been sharing our journey on our blogs and on instagram using the hashtag #tuffsocksnaturally. This tag has been picked up by others on similar sock journeys and Clare Devine’s work with non-nylon millspuns yarns in her sock design work has expanded the tag beyond spinners to the knitting community as well. You can even do a Tuff Socks Naturally knitting class with Clare at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March.

Our findings and musings about the spinning side of things have recently been published by Ply Magazine in their Winter 18 edition on Sock Yarn. You can purchase the magazine directly from Ply following that link. We talk about the origins of the project, our interests and interim conclusions from our experiments.

It was such a joyful experience writing this article with Mary, posting it back and forth between us till it was done. We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it. And do check back here for more installments of Tuff Socks Naturally, I’ve got lots more to share as soon as I finish unpacking all the boxes after moving house.